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Title: Austria-Hungary
Author: Mitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
Language: English
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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
_In the same series_
ENGLAND
FRANCE
ITALY
SWITZERLAND
[Illustration: THE WACHAU: AGGSTEIN]
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
BY
G. E. MITTON
WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1915
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE DUAL MONARCHY 1
CHAPTER II
THE MAKING OF MODERN AUSTRIA 17
CHAPTER III
THE EMPEROR 31
CHAPTER IV
THE COUNTRY OF HUNGARY 40
CHAPTER V
THE PEOPLE 62
CHAPTER VI
THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE 82
CHAPTER VII
VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 92
CHAPTER VIII
A MIGHTY QUARTETTE 102
CHAPTER IX
VIENNA TO BUDAPEST 112
CHAPTER X
THE DANUBE BELOW BUDAPEST 124
CHAPTER XI
BOHEMIA AND OTHER LANDS 131
CHAPTER XII
THE TYROL AND ITS HEROES 154
CHAPTER XIII
THE MOUNTAIN PASSES 166
CHAPTER XIV
THE DOLOMITES 175
CHAPTER XV
THE ILLYRIAN STATE 184
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSYLVANIA AND GALICIA 199
INDEX 211
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
1. The Wachau, Aggstein _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Hohensalzburg 18
3. A Pine Forest in the Tátra 41
4. A Road in the Carpathians 48
5. A Young Magyar Csikós 51
6. Magyar Shepherds 54
7. The Ortler Spitze 57
8. A Paprika-Seller, Kalocsa 64
9. Woman’s Work-day Costume in Kalocsa 75
10. Sunday Costume, Zsdjar 78
11. Roumanian Children bringing Water to be blessed in the
Greek Church, Desze 89
12. Vienna: Castle Schönbrunn 96
13. Vienna: Mozart’s House 105
14. The Houses of Parliament and Margit Bridge, Budapest 112
15. Cottages in the Alföld 123
16. Waste Lands near Kalocsa 126
17. Prague: The Hradschin from Wallensteinstrasse 137
18. Prague: Carl’s Bridge 144
19. Carinthia: Maria-Wörth on the Wörthersee 147
20. Styria: The Grimming, from Pürgg 150
21. Innsbruck 161
22. Kufstein 168
23. Inn Valley in Winter 171
24. Cortina and Mte. Cristallo 174
25. King Laurin’s Rose-Garden, from the Schlern 177
26. Marmolata, from very high above Canazei 179
27. The Drei Zinnen, from the Highest Ridge 182
28. Clissa: A Study in Grey Rock 184
29. Spalato: A Door in Diocletian’s Palace 195
30. Ragusa: The Ploče Road from San Giacomo: Morning 198
31. Harvest-time in Transylvania 201
32. Cracow: Barbarakapelle 208
_Sketch Map at End of Volume._
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
CHAPTER I
THE DUAL MONARCHY
No one can rightly enjoy a visit to a country unless he knows something
of its history and its heroes; otherwise much that is seen remains
meaningless. It is a common saying among oculists that we see with the
brain and not with the eye, and the saying is fulfilled when we pass
by, as without meaning, this or that magnificent statue embodying in
concrete marble or bronze an epoch of vital action in the history of a
nation.
But besides what we miss from want of that observation whose roots are
embedded in knowledge, there are other things duly noted, and but half
comprehended, with a vagueness that is irritating. Especially is this
the case in a country of such an amalgamate nature as Austria-Hungary,
where at every turn something unexpected challenges query. How comes
it, for instance, that having left behind a Parliament House in Vienna
we find another in Budapest though both own allegiance to the same
sovereign? Why should Hungarians be so much exasperated if their
country is spoken of as part of an empire when they acknowledge an
Emperor as their ruler?
To gain some grip of these matters a short historical introduction is
undoubtedly necessary. I do not think, however, that history should
always begin at the beginning, though many people have a passion for
delving into the past and groping after the roots of a subject, which
often prove, when unearthed, to be exceedingly dry. The same tendency
may be observed in writers of biography, who are rarely content to
begin with the man or woman whose life they are undertaking, or even
with their parents, but frequently go back through many centuries,
dwelling at dreary length upon tedious details which occupy half the
book before the pith and core of the matter is reached.
Hence in this very cursory sketch of the Dual Monarchy only so much
as is essential to give colour and life to the whole book in all its
aspects shall be dealt with.
At the present time Austria and Hungary are governed by Francis
Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The two countries are
united for the purposes of Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Finance,
including the Post Office, but have separate Houses of Parliament, an
Upper and a Lower, in each capital, namely Vienna and Budapest. The
respective Houses of Parliament are for common purposes represented by
two Delegations, each composed of sixty members, and convened by the
Emperor once a year alternately at Vienna and Budapest. These members,
of which twenty are chosen from each Upper House and forty from each
Lower one, are only appointed for one year.
As a composite State, Austria-Hungary plays a forceful part in the
concert of the great European nations and wields authority which
neither half could achieve alone. The very first necessity of power
among modern nations is preparedness for war, and in spite of the
curiously differing races and nationalities represented in the
Austro-Hungarian army with its two and a half millions of soldiers, the
army owns solidarity and force enough to make itself respected.
Hungary is the inner part of this composite country, the core, so to
speak, and she lies in the arms of Austria somewhat after the fashion
that the “old” moon may be seen lying in the arms of the “new” one; for
the provinces included in the Empire ring her round on the north and
west in what is more or less a semicircle.
In some particulars we may draw a parallel between the Dual Monarchy
and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, for in both cases the union
was effected by the fact of the countries concerned having the same
reigning house. The differences, however, are manifold. It was by
inheritance that the Scottish Stuarts came to the English throne on
the dying out of the elder branches; it was by election the Austrian
Hapsburgs were chosen for the Hungarian monarchy. Again there has been
between Austria and Hungary no Act of Union, though the Pragmatic
Sanction of 1723 formed a more “personal” union than before. It is the
tie of the Royal House alone which unites them, and it is expediency
only which dictates the amalgamation of the military power and finance
in the two countries. Even here there are sore jealousies. It is
obviously necessary that the same words of command should be used for
the whole army, or disaster would result on the field of battle. These
words are given in German, a foreign language to the rawly-joined
Hungarian recruit, and Hungarian national pride is sorely wounded
thereby. The dilemma is a difficult one, and this question remains ever
an open wound. The Hungarians have besought the King that their own
language might supersede German, but though he has proved kindly to his
Hungarian subjects in many other ways, he remains adamant on this.
The greatest difference, however, between the Dual Monarchy and the
United Kingdom is the difference brought into high relief by the above
point, namely the racial and linguistic diversity between Austria
and Hungary. The inhabitants of the two countries are not men of one
blood and one tongue as the English and Scots are, but are separated
by lines of deep cleavage. And this main cleavage is repeated in
numerous smaller fractures, so that the kingdom is split and cracked
in many directions. Fiercely as the Hungarians demand full play for
their own nationality, yet they would stamp it out in the lesser races
within their borders, who just as eagerly demand their own rights.
Never was any country so split up and divided, and the difficulty is
increased by the fact that the political boundaries are not coterminous
with the national ones, but in many cases the frontiers run through
the middle of the same race, so that half of it lies within and half
without the territory owning Francis Joseph as sovereign! Insurrections
outside the borders naturally set aflame the sympathies of those of
similar blood within, and disturbances are chronic. It is natural
enough therefore that, even setting aside her own desire to snatch an
outlet to the sea as the result of the resettling occasioned by the
Balkan War, Austria-Hungary should be aroused and shaken to the core
by the fighting between races to whom many of her own subjects are
blood-brothers.
The Hungarian, Dr. Julius de Vargha, thus sums up the situation; he
says:
However strong the specially Austrian traditions may be,
the Germans (in Austria-Hungary) stand under the alluring
influence of the splendour and power of the great German
Empire. The Italians long to join Italy; the Slovenians,
Croatians and Servians dream of the establishment of a great
southern Slav Empire; the Roumanians are drawn toward the
independent kingdom of Roumania. The Hungarians alone (Magyars)
are possessed of no dreams of disintegration; their past,
present and future binds them to their present home; and they
are consequently the firmest pillar in the monarchy of the
Hapsburg.
He further says that the Magyar nation stands between the Germanic and
Slav worlds “like an insulator between two opposing electric currents.”
This is of course a bit of special pleading, and we fancy the Austrian
would hotly disclaim any leaning toward Germany; but it is interesting
as showing how the matter appears to the Hungarian mind.
The Dual Monarchy is split into numerous small territories, each
with its own history and its own importance. There are no less than
eleven languages in this polyglot country, and over all rules the one
German-speaking monarch. Part of the Tyrol, one of the best known of
the European playgrounds, lies in Austria, but part is in Italy. Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the latest acquisitions, do not seem, geographically
speaking, to belong to Austria at all, yet they are now included in her
territory. Dalmatia, with its Italian population, is another outlying
district, and it is vitally important because of its sea-coast. The
smaller districts of Carinthia, Carniola, and Moravia lie northward,
and above them again is Bohemia, once a kingdom by itself, with a
stirring history. North of Hungary is the huge and little known
Galicia, not to be confounded with Galicia in the north-west corner of
Spain, though the name is spelt precisely in the same way. To the east
of Hungary is Transylvania, and south of it Slavonia and Croatia. Still
we have only named the best-known divisions.
The whole comprises an immense area; a line drawn round it runs to
over 5000 miles and encloses a territory larger than that of any other
European country except Russia.
One quarter of the population is German, another quarter Magyar (or
Hungarian) and Roumanian, whilst the remaining half is made up of
Italians together with Slavs, namely Poles, Croatians, Czechs, Slovaks.
The Magyars, a wild and interesting gipsy race, live in the centre
of Hungary, more or less, while the Slavs, of the same blood as the
Servians, are ringed round to the north and south, and outside them
again on the German side come the Germans.
How did such diverse elements come to be included in one empire?
As might be supposed the centre of Europe took long to settle down.
In the case of a country so happily situated as Great Britain the
boundaries are natural ones. As for Spain (including Portugal) any
child could rule off a line across the Pyrenees and say that the
territory beyond would make a compact kingdom. France again is favoured
by nature, though on one side she lies open. But when you come to the
middle part of Europe there is nothing to indicate where one country
should end and another begin, and the friction over boundaries never
dies down; as a fact, it seems pure chance that the matter for the
moment remains as it is. It might just as well have been the Austrian
Empire which comprised the whole of the middle of Europe as the German
one, had not the “luck” of the Austrian Emperor been adverse when the
moment was ripe. Indeed, it is but a short time since the map gained
its present outlines, and who can say it will remain stable?
The Holy Roman Empire included the present Austria-Hungary, with all
that is now Germany. It was only about the beginning of our era that
the name Austria arose, meaning the Ost-land or East-land; before that
time the country was a dependency of Bavaria. About the same date
Hungary emerged into a recognised kingdom under St. Stephen (997–1038),
who was to that nation what King Alfred was to England. He endowed the
church with great liberality, and was cultured far beyond the measure
of his contemporaries. He advanced civilisation and trade, and was
one of those enlightened souls which are now and then born out of due
time to give light and leading to their fellows. The 20th of August is
consecrated to him, and on that day a great procession is formed to
carry through the capital his right hand embalmed and enclosed in a
golden casket. To this day the Kings of Hungary are crowned with the
crown presented by the Pope to the first King of Hungary. This forms
the upper part of the present diadem, which stands on a new base. Once
at least in its history this glorious and ancient crown was lost in
the mud! When Otto the Bavarian came to be King of Hungary in 1301 he
brought with him the sacred crown, which had before been taken away by
the Germans, his allies. But the crown, in the confusion of the entry,
was lost, and was only found at length in the deep mud of the hill
tracks through which the party had passed.
In 1301 Stephen’s dynasty, the House of Arpad, became extinct, after
giving to the nation many good kings, besides the two canonised, St.
Stephen and St. Ladislas. Hungary had later as well good kings of other
blood, including Louis the Great (1342–82), King of Poland also, when
it was for a while the most powerful nation in central Europe.[1]
[1] The national poet Bajza says that at this epoch “the shores
of three seas formed the frontiers of the kingdom.”
The Turks were always a thorn in the side of their northern neighbours,
and their endless incursions and alarms were shared almost equally
by Austria and Hungary, and in the end were the means of uniting the
two countries. In his warfare with the Turks the great general,
Janos Hunyadi, proved amazingly valiant and gained victories against
desperate odds. Unluckily in one such combat the reigning King,
Ladislas, was slain, and his head, raised aloft by his enemies,
inspired panic among his own people and ensured their defeat. Nothing
daunted, Hunyadi pursued his successes in the reign of the next King,
and in 1456 scattered a Turkish host under the walls of Belgrade. It
is said that 40,000 of his men were killed, and just in the hour of
victory the great commander himself died. Besides being a notable
general he was a wise statesman and a strong unselfish man.
His son, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi (1458–1490), who was only fifteen,
was afterwards elected King, and his name is one of the most remarkable
in the whole roll of the Hungarians. From his youth up he had been
accustomed to take care of himself in the midst of danger, and he
developed into a resolute and strong soldier; what was perhaps more
remarkable was that he was a patron of the arts and learning. His
library was his chief pride, and in an age when reading was scorned he
spent hours daily in this favourite resort. Here is a description of it
taken from _Hungary_ by Arminius Vambery (_The Story of the Nations_).
The library was in the castle of Buda, and the place assigned
to it comprised two large halls, provided with windows of
artistically stained glass opening into each other. The
entrance consisted of a semi-circular hall commanding a
magnificent view of the Danube. Both halls were provided with
rich furniture. One of them contained the king’s couch, covered
with tapestry embroidered with pearls, upon which he spent
his leisure hours reading. Tripod-shaped chairs, covered with
carpet, were placed about, recalling the Delphian Apollo.
Richly carved shelves ran along the walls and were curtained
with purple velvet tapestry, interwoven with gold. It would be
difficult to describe properly the magnificence of the books
themselves. They were all written on white vellum and bound
in coloured skins, ornamented with rose diamonds and precious
stones, and with the king’s portrait or his arms. The pages
are illuminated with miniature paintings and ornaments, vying
with each other in excellence, and the work of some of the most
famous illuminators of the age.
The palace of Matthias was enriched by the work of the best sculptors
of the time, and his library was continually increased by the labour
of copyists, whom he employed to transcribe manuscripts in Italy. It
was the Golden Age in Hungary, and the chivalrous and strong monarch
attracted to himself poets, painters, and literary men from all the
civilised countries of Europe. Among other things he founded an academy
of letters. These indications of a scholarly mind would have been of no
avail in that rude age unless there had been strong physical prowess
behind them; a weakling, whatever his intellectual calibre, would have
been scorned. King Matthias, however, was one of those unusual men who
combine mental and physical qualities of the highest order. He was as
much a soldier as a scholar, and he asked no luxury in the camp or on
the battlefield, content to share in all the hardships imposed upon
his men. His courage was proverbial, and his heedlessness of danger
so great that he was supposed to bear a charmed life, though not
invulnerable, as numerous scars testified.
In person Matthias was tall and broad, with a massive head and keen
eyes. He gave the most scrupulous and impartial justice to all his
people alike, so that he was surnamed “The Just,” and when he died
there was a current saying, “King Matthias is dead and justice is no
more.” His death was due to apoplexy, and he left no legitimate son to
succeed him.
By this time the House of Hapsburg had come to the fore. They had
originally held possessions in Switzerland and later gained position
and power as Dukes of Austria, Styria, Carniola, etc. When the German
Emperor Conrad died in 1254 there was no successor until Rudolph of
Hapsburg was elected to fill the vacant place. The German Emperor, or
“King of the Romans,” as he was called, was always elected, and the
honour was not hereditary, hence it did not pass of right to Rudolph’s
descendants, though some of them were subsequently chosen for the
position.
While Matthias was on the throne of Hungary Frederick III. of Hapsburg
was ruling in Austria. Matthias attacked him and drove him out of
Vienna; but Matthias was short-lived, dying at the age of forty-seven,
and his successors were feeble and unable to hold what he had gained.
For generations back the Turks had been a thorn in the side of Hungary
and had worried the kings by their constant incursions. They persecuted
the land much as the Danes harried Britain, and thirty-six years after
Matthias’ death the culmination came in a terrific battle fought at
Mohács, where the Turks, in prodigious force and fury, almost wiped the
Hungarian nation off the face of the map. The reigning King, Louis II.,
was but a boy, and his army of 25,000 men was practically annihilated
by one twelve times as great, under Suleiman the Turk. Seven
archbishops and bishops and thousands of nobles laid down their lives
on the field that day, and the defeat was to the nation as poignant
and humiliating as the battle of Flodden Field was to Scotland. The
Turk has always stood out conspicuously as the only Mussulman power in
Europe, and in our time we have seen slice after slice cut away from
his territory and set up as independent kingdoms. The time is surely
not far distant when the Ottoman power will be pushed across into Asia,
to which it so much more fitly belongs; in fact, only the jealousies of
the great nations adjacent have so long delayed this consummation.
The Hungarians, driven frantic by their disasters, appealed to the
Kings of the House of Hapsburg for help, and accepted them as rulers,
alien though they were in blood and race. The solution was accepted
loyally by the majority of the people, but it led to little relief, for
even the Hapsburgs could not hold back the savage Turks, who overran
the great plain of Hungary, and were accepted as suzerains by the
people of Transylvania. For a century and a half before the year 1686
the Hungarian capital was in the hands of the Turks. Such divisions and
dissensions tore the nation in pieces, and there was nothing but misery
for the people.
“But,” writes the distinguished Hungarian, Dr. Julius de
Vargha, already quoted, “it was the national disaster that
displayed the heroic valour and ardent patriotism of the
Hungarian nation. Such splendid instances of intrepid bravery,
undaunted self-sacrifice and chivalrous virtues brighten
these dark pages of our history, that we may justly call this
period the heroic age of the Hungarian nation. But it was not
only military prowess that preserved the national character
of this country, torn, as it was, to pieces and bleeding from
a thousand wounds. It is remarkable that just at this very
period a rich and flourishing national literature sprang into
being. During the reign of Matthias humanistic literature and
culture took deep root in the country; its tongue however
was not Hungarian but Latin. The intellectual movement of
the Reformation made the soil of Hungary, that had already
been cultivated, bring forth a national literature, which the
struggle evoked by the anti-Reformation succeeded in fostering
to a higher development.”
Successive rulers of the Austrian House of Hapsburg were chosen as
German Emperors too, and the effect of this was to make Hungary seem
to them insignificant, and they tried to incorporate it as a part of
their dominions without recognising the Hungarian people as a strong
nation which had freely invited them to rule.
However, when the Turks were driven out of Buda, and the nation had
time to settle her internal affairs, things began to look better. The
Hungarians voluntarily gave up their right of election in the case
of their kings, and settled the succession in the House of Hapsburg;
unfortunately, it was only a short time after this that the then
reigning monarch, Leopold I., treated them with such disdain that
they arose against him in fury, and made war on him, a struggle which
continued for eight years and was ended by an honourable peace in 1711,
when the constitutional independence of Hungary was fully confirmed.
In 1740 the Emperor, Charles VI., died, and left an only daughter, but
before his death he had done his best to secure her inheritance to
her by inducing the Pragmatic Sanction in 1723 to extend the right of
succession to the female line. She was only twenty-three at the time
of her accession, and had four years before married Francis Stephen of
Lorraine, who became Grand Duke of Tuscany. Though the way had been
cleared for her, yet on her father’s death a host of claimants for the
inheritance sprang up. The Prussian, Bavarian, French, Saxon, Spanish,
and Neapolitan rulers all wanted what she had got! The chivalry of
the Hungarians was called to the surface by her position, and when
she appeared at Pressburg (called by the Hungarians Pozsony), then the
capital, with her infant son in her arms she was greeted by the loyal
and splendid cry, “Moriamur pro reges, Maria Teresa,” which has rung
down the ages. Her accession welded the nations together as nothing
else could have done. She proved a popular monarch and conciliated
the Hungarians with womanly tact; she had sixteen children, of whom
her eldest son Joseph succeeded her as Joseph II. and became also
Emperor. One of her daughters was the beautiful and unfortunate Marie
Antoinette.
CHAPTER II
THE MAKING OF MODERN AUSTRIA
Others of Maria Teresa’s descendants, besides Joseph, held the
title of Emperor, but as the Germanic states grew more united among
themselves this tended to become an empty dignity. It was dropped at
last by Francis II., who ascended the throne in 1792. But before that,
Francis had gone through the terrible wars of the Napoleonic era, and
had been shorn of all his dominions beyond Austria and its immediate
dependencies. The first of his outlying dominions to be taken by the
French was the Netherlands, in the same year that he became sovereign.
At that time Francis ruled also in Lombardy, and it was not to be
supposed that Buonaparte would allow any country so near France to
remain untouched; he spread his tentacles over it in 1796, and it
became the Cisalpine Republic. The Austrians did not give up without
a struggle; they made a strong resistance but were outplayed at
every turn. This laid the way to Vienna open to the French, and
they immediately took advantage of it, marching through the Tyrol.
Austria thereupon concluded peace, giving up all idea of recovering
her possessions in the Low Countries, and agreeing to recognise the
Cisalpine Republic, in return for which she received the Venetian
territory. But the greatest advantage Austria received for thus
declaring herself on the side of the conqueror was the province of
Dalmatia, which gave her access to the sea and had long been coveted by
her.
[Illustration: HOHENSALZBURG]
The people of Austria, however, had to be reckoned with, and this
peace was altogether opposed to their wishes; after violent uprisings
they broke through the neutrality, and joining Russia and Prussia
declared war on France. This led to the disastrous defeats of Marengo
and Hohenlinden in 1800, and on the latter occasion between four and
five thousand Austrians were left dead on the field and seven thousand
were taken prisoners. Austria once again cried out for peace and
abandoned the Tyrol to the French without the consent of the Tyrolese
themselves, who had very different views on the subject. It was in 1804
that Francis II. dropped the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire,
which had become an empty form, and adopted instead that of Emperor
of Austria, which he made hereditary; no one seems to have objected,
and as Buonaparte had a few months before declared himself Emperor
of the French, the two newly created emperors agreed to recognise
each other’s titles. Very shortly after Austria was again drawn into
opposition to her temporary ally by England and Russia, and took up
arms once more against the French. This was followed by the disastrous
field of Ulm, with a humiliating capitulation on the part of the
Austrians. The Archduke Charles then succeeded General Mack, who had
been deprived of his command and condemned to ten years’ imprisonment.
Napoleon entered Vienna and established his headquarters in the
Imperial palace. The Russians and Austrians together met him once more
in full fight at Austerlitz, where they were again badly beaten, losing
fifteen thousand killed, and ten thousand prisoners. This was called
the battle of the Three Emperors, for they were all present in person.
Austria now lay under the heel of the French, and a peace was signed
at Pressburg in December 1805. By this Austria agreed, among other
things, to give up her recent possession of Dalmatia; she ceded the
Tyrol to Bavaria, and received instead Salzburg, which lay on her
frontier and had been ever coveted. We shall see in the chapters on
the Tyrol how the Tyrolese regarded this generosity at their expense!
It was not till 1809 that the struggle, as a national struggle, was
again renewed and war once more declared against France. The result of
this was that for a second time the French entered Vienna as conquerors
and Napoleon established himself there. The terrible battle of Aspern,
in which neither side could claim a victory, left the Colossus with
more respect for the fighting powers of his enemies, for it is said
that he remarked once, “He who has not seen the Austrians at Aspern
has seen nothing.” The fate of the empire hung on the next move, which
was accomplished at Wagram on July 5, 1809. The Archduke Charles had
placed himself in a fine strategic position on the hills above Vienna,
and waited for the French to cross the river, yet in spite of this
the Austrians were smashed to pieces. Their bravery is evinced by the
fact that forty thousand dead and wounded were left on the field, but
nothing could withstand the genius of the Man of War who had let loose
his hounds upon them. The peace of Schönbrunn, signed in October,
gave up to the conqueror over forty-three thousand square miles of
territory, including the Tyrol, which the Austrians had once again
attempted to save. Austria lay prone, and it is greatly to her credit
that after an interval she once again agreed with the allies, Prussia
and Russia, to make another desperate struggle for liberty, even though
Napoleon had married the daughter of Francis II.
This princess, Maria Louisa, was of a despicable character, and did not
deserve a better fate. She was the mother of the boy afterwards known
as the King of Rome and the Duke of Reichstadt. She died at Vienna in
1847.
Metternich, the celebrated Austrian minister, played a large part in
affairs during this unhappy time; he was born in 1773 and was not
in reality an Austrian, having first seen the light in the Rhenish
provinces, at a small village from which he took his name. The European
nations, by now banded together in resistance to their common foe, met
in consultation; three great armies were formed, one in the Netherlands
of English, Dutch, and Prussians, with Wellington and Blücher in
command; another on the Rhine, of Austrians, Russians, and Germans;
and a third in Italy, chiefly of Austrians. This was in 1815, and the
result was made known in the world-famous battle of Waterloo, at which
no Austrian happened to be present.
At the end of the war Austria had indeed been deprived of her
Netherlands possessions, but she had instead Dalmatia, and also
Venetia,--which was not finally reft from her until 1866,--and her
hereditary dominions in the Tyrol and in Carinthia and Carniola were
secured to her. She was compact and welded together, and instead of
suffering from the long protracted trials which she had endured, she
came out the stronger from them.
In 1835 Francis II. died and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand IV.,
who in 1848 abdicated in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph, the
present ruler of the Dual Monarchy. However, Francis Joseph did not
come to an easy inheritance, for Hungary was racked with the strain
of trying to burst the limits imposed on her, in order to give her
nationality free play. It was in this struggle that the great leader
Kossuth came to the front, and in 1848 laws were passed allowing
to Hungary a responsible ministry, parliaments to be held annually
in Budapest, popular representation and freedom of the press; but
nevertheless Hungary was soon again in the throes of revolution. The
Croats, Serbs, and the Wallachs of Transylvania rose against her. The
turmoil ended in a war between Austria and Hungary, in which Kossuth
was the moving spirit on the Hungarian side. But when Russia joined
her might to that of Austria, Hungary was ground between two mills and
had no chance. Kossuth fled to Turkey, and thence later journeyed to
England and the United States, preaching his cause. He died in exile in
Italy in 1894, at the age of ninety-two.
In 1867 Hungary was granted a separate constitution and recognised
fully as a separate kingdom. It was then ratified by Act of Parliament
“That Hungary in the spirit of the constitution is an independent
country and does not belong to the countries included in the Austrian
Empire.”
The titles of the present Austrian ruler are extraordinarily numerous;
besides being Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary he is King of
Bohemia, Galicia, Croatia, Slavonia, Illyria, and Dalmatia; Prince of
Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of
Lorraine, of Salzburg, of Styria, Carinthia, Bukowina, and Carniola;
Count of the Tyrol, Graditz, and Gradiska, and even this does not
exhaust the list of titles. Among them is the purely fanciful one
of King of Jerusalem and that of Count of Hohenhembs, under which,
as Countess, the unfortunate Empress was travelling incognito when
murdered.
The two chief powers in the Germanic states were the Emperor of Austria
and the King of Prussia, and it was recognised by all the smaller
states that the Presidency of the Diet, as it was called, must fall
to one of these two. In 1865 Prussia and Austria came to grips over
the question of Schleswig-Holstein, and in “The Seven Weeks’ War” the
Austrians were decisively beaten. So important was this war in the
history of modern Europe that it must be described somewhat more at
length, as it settled for our own time the question of the power of the
German and Austrian monarchs.
In 1864 Austria and Prussia together wrenched from Denmark the
provinces of Schleswig-Holstein and the Duchy of Lauenburg, and almost
immediately thereafter difficulties ensued regarding the administration
of them. After a while it was agreed that Austria should take over
the administration of Holstein and Prussia that of Schleswig, but
when mischief is brewing between two nations who have for years been
rubbing up against each other’s sore points, any settlement can only
be temporary, and this arrangement ended in a further quarrel. Almost
before the other states had realised what was happening, Prussian
troops had invaded Austrian territory by way of Saxony and Bohemia.
This was in June 1866, and no amount of reasoning on the part of
Austria could have averted it, the Prussians were ripe for a fight, and
under the leadership of their great general, Von Moltke, were confident
of victory. On paper indeed Austria seemed to have quite as good a show
as her aggressive neighbour, for many of the smaller states, such as
Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and the two Hesses were
on her side, but Prussia had secured the alliance of Italy, always in
a state of irritation against Austria on account of her coterminous
border. She now intervened, with the effect of causing a dispersal of
Austrian troops through the necessity of being on guard in the south.
The Prussians advanced almost without opposition through Saxony, and
were careful to treat the inhabitants of the country fairly so as to
secure their co-operation.
In Bohemia the Austrians made some resistance but the luck was against
them. The action at Podoll, where the river Iser is 100 yards wide, was
an instance of this. The Austrians held the village and were determined
to make a stand. The Prussians were better armed, however, and
particularly had an advantage in the rapid fire of their needle-guns or
breech-loading rifles, then just coming into use, while the Austrians
still carried muzzle-loaders.
The Prussians had arrived just as night was closing in, and though the
Austrians had the shelter of the houses in which they were entrenched,
they were pressed back, and mercilessly outplayed by the German Jägers.
The contest ended in a clear victory for the Prussians. Close on five
hundred unwounded Austrian prisoners were next morning marched up to
headquarters, and the Austrian loss in killed and wounded was very
considerable. The medical officers officially reported the proportion
of wounded Austrians to wounded Prussians as five to one.
Besides the great strategist, Von Moltke, the Prussians possessed an
able leader in Prince Frederick Charles, the brother of the King, to
say nothing of the Crown Prince.
The Austrian cavalry, consisting of the Hussars and Dragoons,
especially the Windischgrätz Dragoons, were among the most famous in
the world, but again and again in desperate hand-to-hand encounters,
sometimes in narrow streets, hemmed in, they met their match in the
Prussian Uhlans and the Dragoons of their enemies.
On June 29 the King left Berlin and on July 1, arriving at the army
headquarters in Bohemia, he assumed supreme command of the three
Prussian armies then engaged in the war.
Two days later was fought the supreme action of the war in the battle
of Königgratz or, as it is better known, Sadowa, which settled for ever
the leadership of the Germanic states. At first the Austrians were
stationed in the village of Sadowa, but being driven out by a rush,
they retired into the wood above, and held it strongly, and here a
fierce struggle with the bayonet followed.
The Prussians advanced against the nearest trees, but did not at first
make much impression, for the Austrians being here again concealed, the
fire of the needle-gun did not tell, and a whole battery placed at the
far end of the wood fired through the trees, and told on the Prussian
ranks with awful effect. But the assailants fought on and at last broke
down the obstacles at the entrance, and then dashed in.
Affairs did not apparently go more favourably for the Prussians in the
centre. The whole of the First Army was severely engaged, with the
exception of eight batteries of artillery and cavalry, which were still
held in reserve.
When Chlum was taken the Crown Prince advanced to the help of his
generals against Lissa wood, and encouraged by this reinforcement,
which had so unexpectedly turned the tables on the foe, the Prussians
of the First Army leapt to the charge and made for the Austrian
batteries, which had previously done them so much damage. The
Austrians, thus cornered, attempted to escape and made their way down
to the hollow ground on the other side. But even then, though mowed
down by the needle-guns, the Austrians were not beaten. Even when the
Prussian artillery was brought up and sent its shells bursting over
the heads of the retreating soldiers the retreat never became a rout.
Terrible fighting followed, as the Austrians took up their position in
the valley and played their batteries on the pursuers. The manner in
which the Austrians worked their artillery on this occasion provoked
the admiration of their enemies and passed into a proverb. The cavalry
on both sides met in a tremendous collision, but for the Austrians
the day was lost, and thenceforth they retreated, and the pursuit was
continued to the Elbe.
One hundred and seventy-four guns, twenty thousand prisoners, and
eleven standards, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The total loss
of the Austrian army amounted to almost forty thousand men, while that
of the Prussians was not ten thousand.
Worse equipped, worse generalled, but equally brave, to the point of
foolhardiness, the Austrians lost none of their morale in such a battle.
This was not the end of the war, but it practically decided it. There
were many other actions of less importance, but none to equal Sadowa.
Thenceforth the Prussian army steadily advanced on Vienna.
An armistice was proclaimed when the Prussians were already in sight of
Vienna, at Wagram, where Napoleon had won his victory. Here, on July
25, they were drawn close together, “like a crouching lion ready to
spring upon the Danube should the negotiations for peace fail.”
This was what they saw: On the right lay the rounded hill of the
Bisamberg studded with vineyards, cornfields, and woods, among which
vain search with glasses was made to discover any signs of hostile
batteries. Beyond the Bisamberg could be seen the narrow gorge from
which the Danube issues, and further still the rough, rugged recess
of the hills above Klosterneuberg, rising steeply up from the water’s
edge, with their summits capped with heavy masses of dark green
foliage, and their sides sprinkled over with fir trees. A little to the
left and at the foot of the hills the city of Vienna lay sparkling in
the sun; the tops of the steeples and the roofs of the houses glittered
in the bright flood of light. Far away on the left front spread the
Marchfeld, beyond which could be seen the dim blue line of hills which
gird the valley south of the Danube, while directly to the left the
dark Carpathians towered up to the sky.
Those who know Vienna will recognise the unchanged contours of the
country, even fifty years after that summer day when the tired way-worn
German soldiers lay panting in the heat, watching the great city as a
cat watches a mouse, and waiting the word of command. Would it come in
time? The armistice had but two days more to run! And they who had at
one time thirsted to get at their enemy’s capital and so to seize the
nation by its throat were now wearied of war, they were many leagues
from home, and had had their fill of bloodshed. On the evening of the
26th the welcome news arrived, peace had been made, and there was but
one feeling throughout the whole army,--the feeling contained in the
word “home.”
The victory left Prussia supreme among the German states for, included
in the terms of peace, among other things, was the condition that
Austria should retire from the Germanic confederation, leaving her
great rival undisputed master.
It was during this war that Hanover made so brave an attempt to play
up to Austria, and not being backed properly by the other smaller
states, found herself in a pitiable position at the mercy of Prussia.
It was then that the kingdom of Hanover was absorbed by Prussia and
never restored to the King, though he was allowed to live elsewhere
in Germany. The feud thus begun is in the way of being healed at the
present time by the marriage of the German Emperor’s only daughter with
the ex-heir of the House of Hanover.
The relations between Austria and Italy were also changed by this war,
though that must be further considered when we come to the Tyrol.
The Prussian King was undisputed lord of the German confederation,
but he aimed at more than that, and by the brain and audacity of his
counsellor Bismarck he attained his aim, for in 1871 he was hailed as
German Emperor, reigning as an hereditary ruler over the Germanic
states, and thus began the second German Empire.
In 1888 the Triple Alliance was formed, between Italy, Germany, and
Austro-Hungary, each nation pledging itself to assist either of the
others if attacked.
CHAPTER III
THE EMPEROR
Few monarchs have waded through such deep waters of sorrow as the
venerable Emperor of Austria, who was born on August 18, 1830, and
succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his uncle, the Emperor
Ferdinand, and the renunciation of all rights by his own father. To the
good-looking high-spirited lad of eighteen the world probably did not
seem difficult to conquer, even though his dual inheritance was torn by
inward throes of dissension. It was when he was twenty-three that he
met his beautiful cousin Elizabeth, the second of the five daughters
of the Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, at Ischl, and immediately
fell in love with her, though she was only sixteen. Though negotiations
had already been entered into for his marriage with her elder sister,
he declared he would marry her and no one else, and in spite of her
surprised exclamation as to why he should choose one so insignificant,
when told of this prospect by her mother, he carried through his
project and they were betrothed in three days, though not married till
eight months after. The young couple were first cousins, their mothers
being sisters. On that large family of sons and daughters of the house
of Bavaria many sorrows have fallen. The tragic end of the Empress is
described below; one of her sisters, the Duchess of Alençon, was burnt
to death in the terrible fire at the charity bazaar in Paris a few
years earlier. Another, having married the Crown Prince of Naples, was
driven from the throne with him.
The Imperial marriage did not turn out a success. Elizabeth shared to
the full in the eccentric tendencies of her family, an eccentricity
which developed in the elder and reigning branch of her house into
madness. She was of a melancholy temperament, and entirely without the
power of adapting herself. Young as she was, her tastes were formed,
and the somewhat wild out-of-door life she had led as a girl had
imbued her with a hatred of functions and ceremonies. She was suddenly
elevated to a supreme position in one of the most conventional courts
in Europe. Small wonder was it that, in spite of her unquestioned
beauty, she alienated the hearts of her courtiers by her want of tact
and obvious dislike of court life.
Two daughters were born to her before the longed-for son, and one
of them died. This increased her unhappiness, but when at length a
prince appeared it was hoped things would go better. Unfortunately
the Empress’s eccentricity increased rather than diminished. She took
umbrage at the Emperor’s love affairs, which might have been condoned
in one in such a position of temptation, and at last she left her home
and children and wandered over Europe for many years.
Reconciliation was at length effected over the new Hungarian
constitution, when the Emperor and Empress travelled in state to
Budapest, there to be crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The ceremonies
were magnificent. All the various races of the dominions were
represented, as the writer of _The Martyrdom of an Empress_, says:
The escort of one hundred and eighty-two aristocrats was an
especially magnificent sight. Twelve pairs of cavaliers, whose
horses were led by armour-bearers in Magyar dresses, were
followed by eight mounted Magnates, each of whom carried a
banner. The others all came in pairs, each horse being led by
one or two armour-bearers. All the nobles wore the splendid
dress of the Hungarian Magnate, adorned with gold embroidery
and precious stones from the kalpak--or head-covering, which is
surmounted with heron’s feathers--down to the high boots. The
reins, gilt stirrups, and the shabracks and golden scabbards of
the scimitars were covered with diamonds and jewels, many of
them being worth a fortune.
The Emperor has always been personally greatly beloved by his subjects,
and Prince Bismarck once said, “Whatever dissensions the different
nationalities of Austria may have among themselves, as soon as the
Emperor Francis Joseph gets on horseback they all follow him with
enthusiasm.”
The Empress always got on better with the Magyars than with her
Austrian subjects, and was more loved by them. Her wonderful skill as
a horsewoman endeared her to the Magyars, every one of whom is born
with the love of horses in his veins. After the coronation the Empress
set herself to master the Hungarian language, and though it is notably
difficult, she became so proficient in it that the patriot Deak told
her she was the noblest Hungarian of them all. Her openly expressed
sorrow at the death of Deak was another link between her and the
Hungarians, who grew to love her as they had loved no queen since Maria
Teresa. The Empress Elizabeth’s knowledge of foreign languages was
something exceptional; she spoke and wrote German, Hungarian, Czech,
Polish, Roumanian, Italian, Modern Greek, English, and French. She was
very fond of Byron, who, after Heine, was her favourite poet.
The youngest child of the Imperial couple, the Archduchess Valerie, was
born the following year.
In 1879 the Empress visited Great Britain, where her firm and graceful
seat as a horsewoman attracted as much admiration as in Hungary;
she returned many times in later years, and rode to hounds with the
Pytchley, Royal Meath, and in Cheshire, and no mount was too spirited
for her to manage. She stayed also at the Isle of Wight, which she
greatly appreciated, and her clever feats of swimming were only second
to her horsemanship.
The Emperor, meantime, having borne first the burden of internal
dissensions, and then the trial and humiliation of the war with
Germany, grew old before his time and became grave and quiet.
Prince Rudolph married the Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, and
in 1883 their only child, a daughter, was born to them. She was about
six years old when the terrible death of Rudolph fell as a heavy blow
on his parents. The hot-headed young man was mixed up in intrigues
unsuitable to his responsible position, with the result that he took
his own life by shooting himself, and was found dead in a shooting-box
at the end of January 1889. It is said that the Empress was never known
to laugh again.
In the following year her youngest daughter, the Archduchess Valerie,
married, and from that time the unhappy Empress travelled about a great
deal incognito on the Continent, and staying at her palace Achilleion
on Corfu. On this she spent thousands of pounds. Since her death it has
been purchased by the German Emperor.
The end came on Sunday September 11, 1898, at Geneva, whither she had
gone over for a few days from Territet where she had been staying.
Accompanied only by a lady-in-waiting the Empress was walking along the
quay between one and two in the afternoon to rejoin the boat which was
to take her back to Territet, when a man rushed forward and struck her
violently over the heart. It was thought at first he had only stumbled
against her and caused her to fall, and though he was secured no great
apprehension was raised by his strange conduct. The Empress recovered
herself and went on board, where she fainted. It was then discovered
that he had pierced her heart with a triangular file resembling a
stiletto, which had inflicted only a small wound but bled internally.
Brought back to Geneva she died in half an hour. The assassin, who had
been arrested, turned out to be an Italian anarchist named Luccheni,
who seemed to have no special motive for his dastardly crime beyond a
general vendetta against crowned heads. Thus died the Empress Elizabeth
in her sixty-first year, adding one more heart-rending sorrow to her
husband’s darkened life. There is hardly any grief in the range of
human relationships that the Emperor has not known. It was in the
very year of his wife’s death, in the month of December, that he was
preparing to celebrate his jubilee. Up to the present time he has
reigned longer than any other European sovereign of whom we have
record, having even out-distanced Queen Victoria.
There is loyalty of a very deep and true kind amongst all classes of
his subjects; it is not the Austrians alone, but the Slavs and Tyrolese
and Hungarians, who look with tender reverence on the aged man, now
in his eightieth decade, who has lived far beyond the allotted span
of man’s life. Loyalty it is none the less because it does not seek
avidly the tittle-tattle as to royal doings so eagerly sought in Great
Britain, nor does it lead to mobbing the Emperor in his capital when he
goes among his subjects.
In character the Emperor is free from vanity and simple in his tastes.
He has suffered so much that even had he not had dignity and courage
as inborn qualities he must have gained them, otherwise he could never
have survived the repeated blows of fate. He is sparing of words, but
his thought penetrates below the surface. “His calm placidity enables
him to see through the transparent motive of the self-seeker, the
charity-mongering toady--a rare gift of kingship. An indulgent smile
perhaps, but few stars and crosses are to be had for incense-burning
to this Habsburg.” In spite of being a constitutional ruler, it is
the personality of the Emperor that counts in a way that is felt
in no other country. Perhaps it is because he forms the only link
among so many nationalities, so many jarring, turbulent, and opposed
aspirations, that his person is so strongly revered. Whatever else
divides the Magyar from the Austrian and the Slav from the Magyar, here
they are all at one. Quiet, reserved, shrewd, and kindly, he has learnt
by many bitter experiences to play his hard part to perfection.
The Austrian National Anthem evokes as much feeling as in more
homogeneous countries.
[Illustration: AUSTRIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM
{_Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, {God preserve our gracious Emp’ror,
Unsern guten Kaiser Franz!_} Franz our sov’reign, great is he:}
{_Hoch als Herrscher, hoch als Weiser, {Wise as Ruler, deep in knowledge,
Steht er in des Ruhmes Glanz!_} Nations his renown may see!}
_Liebe windet Lorbeerreiser Love entwines a crown of laurel
Ihm zum ewig grünen Kranz! That shall all unfading be!
Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, God preserve our gracious Emp’ror,
Unsern guten Kaiser Franz!_ Franz our sov’reign, great is he!
_Über blühende Gefilde O’er a vast and mighty Empire
Reicht sein Scepter weit und breit; Rules our Sov’reign day by day;
Säulen seines Throns sind Milde, Though he wields a potent sceptre,
Biedersinn und Redlichkeit, All beneficent his sway;
Und von seinem Wappenschilde From his shield the Sun of Justice
Strahlet die Gerechtigkeit. Ever casts its purest sway!
Gott erhalte, etc._ God preserve, etc.
_Sich mit Tugenden zu schmücken, To adorn himself with virtues
Achtet er der Sorgen wert: He, and all successful, tries;
Nicht um Völker zu erdrücken Ne’er against his loving people
Flammt in seiner Hand das Schwert. Does his hand in anger rise!
Sie zu segnen, zu beglücken, No! to see them free and happy,
Ist der Preis, den er begehrt. This he holds the highest prize.
Gott erhalte, etc._ God preserve, etc.
_Er zerbrach der Knechtschaft Bande, Pioneer of perfect freedom,
Hob zur Freiheit uns empor! Blessings round his footsteps cling,
Früh erleb er deutscher Lande, To its pinnacle of greatness
Deutscher Völker höchsten Flor, Soon may he his country bring!
Und vernehme noch am Rande And when death at last approaches
Später Gruft der Enkel Chor: Shall his grateful people sing:
Gott erhalte, etc._ God preserve, etc.
]
Since the Salic law runs in Austria the Emperor’s grand-daughter cannot
succeed him, any more than his own two married daughters.
The latest, and in some ways the most terrible, tragedy of all that
have fallen on the royal house is yet fresh in the minds of every one,
for the assassination of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, and his wife, in the streets of Serajevo took place on
June 28, 1914. The Archduke was born in 1863, and was the son of the
Emperor’s next brother. He was thus past middle life, and was a man of
strong personality. His wife was of noble, but not of royal, blood,
and had been lady-in-waiting to the Archduchess Isabella. At the time
of the marriage the Archduke had to agree to give up all rights of
succession for any children of this union, and therefore his two sons
are now set aside in favour of their cousin, the Archduke Charles
Francis Joseph, son of their father’s brother, the late Archduke
Otto, who becomes Heir-Apparent. He was born in 1887, married in 1911
the Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and has already a little son.
All the Emperor’s brothers have passed away before him. The Archduke
Maximilian, his favourite, suffered an unhappy fate. He was offered the
crown of Mexico by Napoleon III. He accepted, and in 1864 sailed for
the “Kingdom” thus bestowed on him, but his army abandoned him and the
republicans captured and shot him, thus adding another sorrow to the
heart of the aged Emperor.
CHAPTER IV
THE COUNTRY OF HUNGARY
Running round fully two-thirds of Hungary are the Carpathian ranges
of mountains. Hungary has been called the land of “three mountains
and four rivers,” and the emblem of these form the chief feature in
the coat-of-arms of the country. The mountains are supposed to be the
Tátra, Fátra, and Mátra, and the rivers the Danube, Theiss or Tisza,
Drave, and Save. But this, in regard to the mountains at all events, is
misleading, for the country is surrounded by mountains on three sides,
a great chain of 900 miles long reaching round north, east, and south
to the Iron Gates of the Danube, and to mention only three peaks out of
so many but little inferior does not give a true notion of the country.
The north-western Carpathians are divided into several ranges; one
separates Hungary from Moravia, Silesia, and Galicia. There are passes
of great grandeur leading through the Carpathians at many points,
and the way in which the heights rise sheer on the Hungarian side
greatly adds to the impressiveness. A good deal of the mountains is
thinly populated, and the villagers are often very primitive in their
habits.
[Illustration: A PINE FOREST IN THE TÁTRA]
The Carpathians are of great bulk and breadth, and are covered with
trees. The highest peaks are above the perpetual snow-line, and rise
grandly from the evergreen forests. In the higher parts pine and fir
predominate, but in the lower ranges oak, beech, and ash are common.
Vast armies of pigs, led by little swineherds, seek their chief food
under the trees, where they find abundance of beech-mast and acorns.
The sight of a swineherd leading forth his flock in the morning from
a village is a quaint one. He stands and calls or whistles, and from
almost every cottage one or more pigs joyfully run grunting to join
him; many of them are horrible creatures to our notions, with matted
long hair and covered with fleas; nevertheless he lets them rub up
against him, he fondles them, and allows them to rest their heads on
his lap!
The chief features of the health resorts in the Carpathians are the
wonderful mineral waters which gush out abundantly almost everywhere,
and the glorious air and grand scenery. The springs and baths alone are
enough to make the fortune of any place, but when added to these are
endless diversity of walks through forest scenery, wonderful panoramas
of wind and rock-scarred precipices, stretching on one behind the other
and backed up perhaps by a mantle of glittering snow, it is remarkable
the world at large has not yet “discovered” this playground fully.
There are also little lakes lying in hollows. These are the work of
glaciers, and are of a deep blue or green colour. On a still day the
scenery is reflected as in a mirror. They are called by the poetic
name of “sea-eyes.” The terrific falls of water streak the precipitous
heights with white ribbons.
For those who can afford it there is chamois-hunting, though it gets
yearly more difficult as the animals are driven further and further
by the intrusion of men; and even bison-hunting, though this has to
be arranged with a private owner who only grants the privilege to his
guests. The resorts are greatly sought by invalids in the winter,
and also by a totally different class of pleasure-seekers, those who
delight in ice-sports and pastimes. The two seasons are from the middle
of June to the end of September, and from the middle of December to the
end of February.
All through the Tátra runs a fine road, made by the Hungarian
Carpathian club to link up the principal places; this is 21 miles in
length and reaches from Csorba to Barlangliget.
The railway line to the Tátra passes by the river Vág for the most
part, and as every height is crowned more or less by a ruined castle,
it is inevitable that the route has been compared with the Rhine
valley. But there is no steamer on the Vág on account of its rapids,
and those who wish to come down it will have to do so on a native-made
raft, which is piloted with great skill by the peasants through
seemingly impassable turmoils of water. The rail goes past Poprad, and
it is near here that the first real view of the Carpathians is had, the
central range, stretching grim and grey about thirty miles due east and
west, and rising apparently straight from the plain.
From Poprad can be visited the extraordinary Ice Cave at Dobsina, one
of the wonders of the world, where skating is possible in the summer
even when the air outside is at a high temperature. The perpetual
chill in the cavern is accounted for by the fact that it lies at a
lower level than the outer ground, and that the cold air, having once
entered, hangs heavily, so when the warmer air of summer seeks to
displace it, it cannot find entrance. The cave is to-day planed and
smoothed and rendered easy of access in the way universally considered
necessary with any work of Nature’s, until it resembles a piece of
man’s architecture; nevertheless the beauty is still great, even
though the gleam from the crystals is that reflected by electricity,
which gives an artificial aspect to everything. The ice-columns and
pendants are constantly changing in bulk and form, and the floor of
the lower cave, a mass of ice, the cubic content of which can hardly
be estimated, is so smooth that skating is possible at any time of the
year.
From Poprad again one can go to Csorba, where a small cog-wheel
railway runs to a lake thus described by one who is an artist in
words: “Magnificently situated among mountains and forest. Lines and
patches of snow flecked the heights, and were mirrored in the still
waters. Against the sunset the mountains became a warm plum colour,
and, with the dark forests, plane behind plane of purply green, were
all perfectly reflected in the glowing water, save where the evening
breeze cut level silver lines.” Strange tales are told of some of these
lakes, the depths of which are unmeasured, and the notion that they are
connected with the sea by some subterranean caverns is still believed
by the peasants. The hotel here belongs to the Sleeping-Car Company.
The massive granite range of the High Tátra is about 18 miles long by
9 or 10 broad, its highest summits are Francis Joseph, Lomnitz, and
Ice-Valley Peaks, rising to about 9000 feet.
The best known of all the Tátra watering-places is Tátra Füred,
called the mother of them all. This holds its season in July and
August, and consists of three settlements, New Smecks, Old Smecks,
and Lower Smecks, with numerous hotels, concert halls, restaurants,
and every sort of convenience for the visitor. Only 4½ miles away is
Tátra Lomnitz, where there is a large hotel and golf-links, but no
village. This is the terminus of a loop-line from Poprad. At another
of the watering-places in the neighbourhood, Barlangliget, there are
wonderful caves with stalactite formations. This stands higher than
Tátra Lomnitz on the road leading to Poland.
One of the most wonderful and best developed of all these places is
Pöstyén situated at the foot of the Lower Carpathians near the Vág.
The hot springs of Pöstyén have been known for generations, and are
even referred to in the twelfth century. As is often the case they
have occasionally shown some vagaries, the mud-source shifting about
erratically from time to time on either shore of the river, and after a
tremendous inundation in 1730 they disappeared, but not for long, for a
few years after the bathing was going on in full swing, and since then
the springs have been stationary. They are sulphurous and exceptionally
hot, the natural temperature being 140° F. Their upspringing causes
an overflow which runs down into the river and shows itself in mighty
rolling clouds of steam rising from the surface. The constant flow
causes a deposit of silky sulphurous mud, and it is this that makes
the fame of Pöstyén. It is a wonderful cure for rheumatism in all its
many manifestations, which is borne witness to by a museum filled with
the crutches discarded by patients who have recovered the full use of
their limbs. The springs are also rich in radium, and radiograph photos
have been taken in a dark room by the agency of the mud alone! Besides
rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, fractures, sprains, and bone diseases are
treated here, and the thermal water is taken internally as well as
in the form of baths. The air is dry and the situation sheltered from
the north. Many of the hotels are open all the year round, and though
the summer season is the principal one the treatment can be carried on
at any time. One of the largest and newest of the many hotels is the
“Thermia,” which is near the huge Irma bath, itself a revelation of
what can be done in this direction. The bath is built right over the
springs, and its vast floor, 126 feet in diameter, is of mud. There are
corridors and lifts and dressing-rooms enough for an army, and private
baths can be had here too. It is one of the latest and most complete
buildings of its kind in the world. There is another bath-house too
bearing the name of the monarch. The Kur Salon, adjoining the Kur
Hotel, contains reading-rooms, music and dining-rooms, besides a
beautiful ballroom. There are recreation grounds, a theatre, a fine
park with magnificent trees and promenades by the river. Here special
home-industry articles of needle-work peculiar to the district are
on sale. Boating can be indulged in safely, and there are endless
beautiful walks into the hills around. The proprietor of Pöstyén is
Count Emmerich Erdody, and he lets the Spa on lease.
At a little known place on the Mátra mountains called Párad, the waters
are a combination of iron and alkaline, and also there is a spring of
arsenic water which achieves astonishing results in certain cases. So
numerous are the springs in these parts that in spite of the up-to-date
development of such places as Pöstyén and Tátra Füred, there are many
places where the peasants still indulge in primitive baths as the pigs
used the pools before Bath was built. Owing to their open-air life and
the constant dampness of their clothes the poor people suffer greatly
from rheumatism, and while bathing they preserve their bodies from the
extreme heat of the pits where the water lies, by lining the sides with
branches of trees as was done in the old days at Pöstyén itself.
Far the most intimate picture of homely life among the various peoples
of the Carpathians which has yet been written in English, is Mrs.
Phillimore’s _In the Carpathians_, giving an account of a leisurely
tour made by herself and her husband with a cart all around the great
encircling heights. Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Czechs, Saxons, all
passed before them in review, and they even came across the dreaded
Wallachs, held up by the Slavs as bogey men. The Wallach is akin to the
Roumanian, and proved himself on acquaintance much less formidable than
painted.
They started from Zakopane in High Tátra Mountain, and here they picked
up the Polish boy, Milak, who went the greater part of the way with
them to drive the cart. They slept out for the most part, had a total
absence of adventures of any kind, and the chief difficulty was the
lack of food. They were on the border line between Hungary and Galicia,
crossing into one or the other as the road wended. Bread, bacon, and
sausages, honey and fruit, and sometimes cheese and milk, were the
staple diet, and oft-times they were thankful to get anything. Many of
the villages were extremely poor. They passed through a watering-place
at Bardfield, where baths, cafés, restaurants, and large hotels make it
exceedingly popular with the German element who take up all the rooms
weeks ahead for the season. But for the most part they shunned the
frequented resorts and passed only through little-known districts where
the people were very poor.
The writer sums up the races she met in this sentence:
Poles and Slovaks we decided were amongst the lovable races
of the world; Ruthenians and Jews were to be esteemed but
not beloved; while gipsies were too flighty and flippant to
be recipient of any responsible emotion. We knew little of
Magyars; Wallachs, Szeklers and Roumanians proper, we had yet
to meet, and beyond innumerable suggestions that they were
“dangerous people” had no knowledge of them.
[Illustration: A ROAD IN THE CARPATHIANS]
It is a record of beech woods, and many streams, of quiet bad roads,
and wide maize fields, of poor and dusty villages with kindly
villagers, who, though curious, were usually innately well-mannered.
After completing the semicircle they returned again to the plain,
and here is a striking little description:
Up the broad high road came a cart full of peasants and a
string of thin light-footed horses. Far off in the distance
rose a cloud of dust, and from out of it came a herd of white
cattle, followed by a crowd of black buffaloes. The great
golden plain striped with brown ploughed land, the groups of
corn-stacks, the threshing-machine and the teams of buffaloes
and oxen with their drivers in white and red, and on the road
the herds returning slowly homewards--this was our last clear
picture of Hungary.
A book to read, though it does not encourage one to “go and do
likewise.”
The north-eastern Carpathians include the Wooded Carpathians and a
range of low hills where the much admired wine of Tokay is produced.
The town of Tokay nestles at the base of these hills, called Hegyalia,
and is itself disillusioning, its population consisting almost entirely
of wine-growers and wine-buyers or middlemen, so that a constant
chaffering spirit spoils the romance. The essence of Tokay is made of
the juice which runs out of the ripe grapes pressed down by their own
weight. This is produced by putting the grapes in a cask with holes
bored in the bottom through which the juice runs. This essence is so
scarce that it is hardly ever offered for sale to outsiders, who,
indeed, get very little chance of pure Tokay at any time. The other
two kinds are made by mixing juice, pressed artificially out of fresh
grapes, with some of the pulp, and these two are known as “ausbruch”
and “maslas.” Tokay varies from pale yellow to rich gold in colour, but
red wines are produced in Transylvania and elsewhere.
Many are the drinking songs of Hungary, but very difficult to translate
in the spirit of the original. Here is a characteristic one:
WINE SONG
Away with grief, away with pain,
Let us bathe our throats in wine,
And quaff it to a tuneful strain.
Wine for me--the joyous wine,
Whose sap can make one strong.
Who drinks not wine, the Magyar name
To him may not belong!
The fish loves water for its part,
No fish’s shape is mine!
For me the wine that warms the heart
Born beside Tokay’s vine.
What’s water unto me?
Whoever drinks not wine
No Magyar can be.
Cold beer the Germans swill,
We quaff the grape with song,
For beer from water they distil,
Two pints a penny strong--
Wine to me bring here,
Who drinks it not, the Magyar name
He holds not ever dear.
Hungary ranks high among wine-producing countries, at least a million
acres being under cultivation of the vine, while the Tokay wine is
limited to that grown within an area of about twenty square miles.
[Illustration: A YOUNG MAGYAR CSIKÓS]
In contrast to the stern heights of the mountains the Great Plain of
Hungary, the Alföld, which has been called the “heart and brain and
soul” of Hungary, is a startling contrast. It is 35,000 square miles
in area, and the soil is rich, so that it lies like an oasis amid
the encircling heights. It is the greatest plain in Europe and is at
an average height of 350 feet above the sea. Quantities of corn are
grown here, but in some places the ground is still too swampy for such
cultivation, and the people live by gathering the reeds and rushes with
which to make mats, and osiers for baskets.
On the far-reaching Alföld it is the majestic _Nothing_ that
awes and impresses you. There are neither trees nor pastures,
neither hills nor dales, neither flocks nor people. Simply
miles and miles of _nothing_, arched over by the blue of
heaven, but if you look closely you will find on the sand
the tiny traces of fairy footsteps. It has its own peculiar
fairies as well as its own peculiar grasses, flowers, birds
and insects. _Fata Morgana_ is the sovereign who queens it
over them there; but she shows herself more rarely every year.
Silence broods over all, and subtle fitful shadows chase each
other across the “large neglect” of this broad expanse, where
patches of long knotted grass and charming water weeds wave and
toss feebly in the balmy breeze. Wild ducks and moor-hens share
the shelter of “withied” swamps with the heron, the crane and
the stork, and gaze without a sign of fear or trepidation on
the rare passer-by.
But this was written many years ago, and much of the area has been
drained since then.
Any one familiar with the prairie can well picture the Alföld with its
undying fascination, and will be able to see it in the mind’s eye as
it lies with miles and miles of yet unripened corn like a vast ocean
brushed into small waves by the wind. There is hardly a tree, and
the sky-line, unbroken in its tremendous semicircle, sweeps on ever
infinitely. It is difficult to give any idea of the Alföld, unless the
characteristics of the people who dwell in it are taken into account as
throwing light upon it. This great plain, once an inland sea, contained
at one time a gigantic marsh of 100,000 acres, and the rivers Theiss
(or Tisza) and Danube overflowed their banks occasionally, making it
impossible for any one to live near them in safety. Now a great part of
the marsh has been drained, the rivers are confined to their channels,
and their backwaters and islets form a breeding-place for thousands
of geese, which at times may be seen in such numbers that it seems as
though the land was covered with large snowflakes.
Here is a translation of an old national song:
THE ALFÖLDER
I dwell on the heath through sunshine or snow,
And on holidays I with my dear one can go;
But far on the Hortobagy plain,
In vain to God’s house would I hie--in vain.
Flat is the heath where no trees do grow,
The high steeple-top in the sunshine doth show,
The tall church spire to the heath is plain;
But far from God’s house I must still remain!
I’d pray, but no prayer at all do I know,
And never to school in my life did I go.
My mother would thither have sent me fain,
But ah! long, long in the grave has she lain.
Pray thou to good God, my dovelet, go--
Come after church thy kiss to bestow--
Thy prayerful sweet lips I’ll devour again,
And more than a fortnight from oaths I’ll refrain!
The Hungarians were ever a wild and warlike people, and as the country
became more settled they found their chief delight in tending horses,
being born horsemen. The name _csikos_, which really means horseman,
now includes shepherd or herdsman. Horse-breeding goes on largely to
this day. The csikos live a primitive wild life still, and round up
their horses with the skill of an American cowboy. The horses in the
herd are half-wild, and are rounded up by the use of the karikas, a
short-handled long-lashed whip, with which the herdsman, going at full
speed, can single out any animal and touch it up in any part of its
anatomy he desires with the unerring aim of a brilliant marksman with a
bullet. His own special mount is generally as dear to him as the Arab’s
horse is to its master. It shares his shelter and will come at his
call, and eat out of his hand. The name Hussars applied to troops of
soldiers comes from Hungary, and the Hungarian Huszar is still the best
rider on the continent, a veritable part of his beast.
The Hungarian horses are as a rule hardy spirited little creatures,
descendants of the race which came with their masters from the east.
The government has improved horse-breeding, introducing English and
Arab blood, and there are two large government studs for the purpose.
[Illustration: MAGYAR SHEPHERDS]
The Hungarian loves the boundless spaces of the plain; it has been
said that he shares in its qualities, “the same absolute straightness,
the same taciturnity characterise both.” Here in the sweltering summer
heat he works all day uncomplainingly, to gather in the fruits of
cultivation; here, when the white mantle of winter lies over the silent
icy spaces he wanders in his sheepskin. The horseherd or csikos, once
the aristocrat of the plain, now is hardly distinguishable from the
shepherd or cow-herd whose avocations he shares. The far-famed white
horned cattle of Hungary are tended and reared on the Alföld. It is
a sight to see them yoked as a four-in-hand with their spreading
horns and splendid hides gleaming in the sun. Beneath an acacia, the
Hungarian tree, or a willow, both of which are plentifully found, the
shepherd pitches his rude wattled tent. Possibly he has with him one
of the native dogs, great snow-white shaggy fellows, who are, alas,
growing fewer every year. Storms and clouds, heat and rain, affect
not the man who meets them all calmly. The great black cloud of hail
which bursts in masses of ice is met with stoical patience. At evening,
maybe, he sees far off across the plain what appears like a sheet
of blue water, and yet there is none; it is a mirage raised by the
refractive power of the air. The wild duck and water-hens and even the
herons have now migrated elsewhere, but there is still fishing to be
had, and the herdsman is often a keen angler.
There are many flourishing towns to be found in the Alföld, of which
Debreczen, Szeged, Kecskemét, and Temesvar are perhaps the best known.
In these towns there are electric lighting, asphalt paths, a good water
supply, and other comforts of civilisation.
A recent writer has said:
In general the towns we saw throughout Hungary looked new;
and indeed we were more than once--until we became wary--sent
to places said to be most interesting, only to find that new
municipal buildings, new banks, new schools, streets in course
of construction, electric trams and electric lighting, were
their chief attraction. But there were towns that well repaid
a visit, and of these one was Löcse (German Leutschau), chief
town of the Zips country, near to the Tátra. Sometimes called
the Nuremberg of Hungary.
The largest lake in Hungary is Lake Balaton, which may well be
described as an inland sea, for it is 47 miles in length. It is
difficult to describe what Lake Balaton means to a country like Hungary
deprived of a seashore. Though the lake has no tides the levels are so
constantly changing that monotony is impossible; this is no dead sheet
of water. Its very size makes room for the breakers the storm-wind
sweeps before it, and storms are by no means lacking. For many years
there has been a railway line along the southern shore, but only
recently another, completed in 1909, carries people also along the
northern shore, which is the more popular, and the health resorts and
bathing places which have sprung up are innumerable. All Hungarians who
can afford it carry their families to this charming resort, there to
bathe and dabble and fish, or to voyage by steamer or yacht. The lake
is divided into two by a long peninsula which stretches out from the
north side almost to the opposite shore. On the north side, there are
hills rising in vine-clad slopes, with white houses nestling in them,
and at the foot many a town, of which Balaton-Füred is the principal
one. The lake is rather shallow, though varying enormously with the
feeding it receives from springs and streams, but it is deepest on the
north side, where bathing is easier than on the sandy shore of the
too shallow south. Long wooden piers with huts at the end of them are
constantly available, and every one bathes. Many a pretty picture can
be seen of a peasant woman, her face alight with fun, her wet hair
thrown back, dipping a pink innocent babe in the fresh water.
Balaton-Füred is not only a seaside place but has wonderful alkali
springs and baths which are excellent as cures. There are many
excursions to be made. Steamers run the whole length of the lake.
The walks and drives are innumerable. For other interests there are
yacht races and fishing. In winter the lake freezes easily because
of its general shallowness, and then the whole of the 600 square
kilometres are available for skating and winter sport. When the ice
breaks up, which it does with cracks like pistol-shots, and piles
itself in masses, glittering with every colour of the rainbow like
gigantic prisms, happy are they who are there to see it!
[Illustration: THE ÖRTLER SPITZE]
At the western end there are curious basaltic effects, great cones
rising from the vine-covered slopes like sugar-loaves, or hills which
appear to be built up of columns of basalt, as in the far-famed
Fingall’s Cave of Scotland. There are ruined castles artistically
arranged on hills, piled up by the gradual forces of nature, not by
art; and there is the magnificent seat of Count Tassilo Festetics at
Keszthely near the western end. Balaton well deserves the place it
holds in popular estimation in Hungary.
If time is limited, and it is desired to see something of the two great
attractions of Hungary, the rich lowland and the mighty hills, in a
short time, no one could do better than take a ticket from Budapest
to Orsova. Railway travelling in Hungary is cheap compared with other
countries; it is run according to zone system, and the farther you
go the less you pay proportionately. The management is extremely
enterprising, and deserves much credit for it in a country where the
national spirit is inclined to dwell on the past rather than to work
for the future.
The very large towns passed through will astonish those who think that
the peasants still live in little rough villages. At a place like
Kecskemét, for instance, there is a magnificent town hall, and as the
town is truly Hungarian the quaint costumes of the people seen in the
imposing streets have all the piquancy of contrast with their modern
surroundings. Kecskemét lives to a large extent by agriculture. The
suburbs are one mass of fruit orchards, and at the time of the “peach
market” the smell of the exquisite fruit is radiated far and wide.
Cucumbers--which are eaten by the children like bananas--grapes, and
apricots, are grown in quantities, and there are a number of vineyards.
Willows and acacias are frequently seen, both being planted along the
roads in avenues.
A very large town on the banks of the Tisza is Szeged, with over
100,000 inhabitants. Szeged has suffered much in times past from the
Tisza’s unruly manners, and in 1879 was subject to a very terrible
inundation, when hundreds of people were drowned. The river is now
properly embanked. The wide squares, the well laid out gardens, the
artistic architecture, will be a revelation to many people. The town
has a busy industrial life with steam-mills, timber-works, flax
industries, also paprika-mills. This is a special industry. The hot
red pepper called paprika is used in quantities by every Hungarian, and
dished up on all occasions. Formerly it used to be ground by hand, but
now steam-driven mills have taken up the task. There are distilleries
too, and Szeged soap is renowned, while its silk slippers are famous.
The river is responsible for shipbuilding and fishing industries.
Another large town is Temesvar, also industrial, with clean straight
streets, electric tramways, and an extraordinary amount of open space.
Its chief interest is that here stood the original castle of the great
patriot, John Hunyadi, now marked by a later castle in a square of
that name. Tobacco and mosaic, bricks and textile goods are turned out
from Temesvar, and not far off is a fine watering-place called Buzias.
Northward lies another large town called Arpad, the centre of a rich
vine-growing district.
It is only after leaving Lugos we begin to see the hills, which we are
soon to enter.
To the east lies a country of mining and factories, smelting furnaces,
and other disagreeable evidences of industrial prosperity. The smelting
is carried on by charcoal made from the splendid fir and beech forests.
Iron and coal are found in quantities, and it will be news to most
people that Hungarian steel goes to England as well as to other
European countries.
Road, rail, and river run together through a narrow mountain defile,
and finally the railway goes through a tunnel which is at the summit
level of the line. Then the line is wonderfully engineered in and out
along the hillsides, across valleys, and over bridges. In one of these
valleys is the oldest health resort in the country, the famous Baths
of Hercules, not far from the Iron Gates of the Danube. Herculesfürdo,
to give it its native name, was established by the Romans two thousand
years ago. The springs are sulphur and salt, and the cures of
rheumatism, skin disease, and other ailments still wrought by them are
almost miraculous. The river Cserna runs through the valley. The place
is under State management, and there are now many good hotels, and the
walks through the steeply-rising wooded cliffs are well planned and
laid out. It is visited in the season by hundreds of people, a large
number being foreigners. From the top of the hills, which rise to over
3000 feet, there are charming views. In these hills there are caves,
one of which is full of hot vapours and used by many people as a vapour
bath.
Beyond this we reach Orsova, which is on the Danube and is mentioned
elsewhere.
This little glimpse of the Alföld with its wheatfields and vineyards,
its flourishing towns and large rivers, will give an excellent
impression in miniature of the whole of its extent, while the grim
scenery of the Southern Carpathians forms a striking contrast.
So much for the northern and eastern parts of the Dual Monarchy, but
the south-western part has a character quite its own, and in the Empire
of Austria the Alps play a larger part than the Carpathians. The
Rhaetian or Tyrolese Alps form the highest range, many topping 12,000
feet, the highest point, the Orteler Spitze, attaining 12,814. These
Alps are subdivided into three chains, of which the above-mentioned
peak is to be found in the most southerly; the middle chain extends to
the borders of Salzburg and Carinthia, and the northern one lies above
it again. The Noric Alps are those in Salzburg, Styria, and Carinthia,
and they are also broken into chains. The Carnic or Carinthian Alps are
another range in the north of Carniola, and the Julian Alps lie in a
south-easterly direction, running through Carniola to Dalmatia.
All the beautiful mountainous scenery in this part of the Empire,
including the Tyrol, is known to those who love natural scenery, and
the Tyrol itself, with the Dolomites, rivals Switzerland in the number
of holiday-makers attracted by it. The country about Salzburg is less
known outside the inhabitants of Austria themselves, but the enterprise
of the Austrian State railways is opening it up. All this is dealt with
in another part of the book.
CHAPTER V
THE PEOPLE
A very interesting race is that of the Magyars who people Hungary. The
word Hungary is of course derived from the Huns, who are described
in their earliest descent into Europe from Central Asia as a “fierce
Tartar people of dwarfish figure, great strength and ugly beardless
faces.” They penetrated far, under their great leader Attila, but his
defeat and death in 453 broke their dominion, and they retreated again,
leaving only traces of their influence on the nations of modern Europe.
The Magyars came over from the direction of the Ural Mountains in the
ninth century; their chief, Arpad, founded a dynasty, of which St.
Stephen was the first king. Arpad bears a name comparable with Attila
and other great chiefs of bygone days. Mr. Whitman, in his book _The
Realm of the Habsburgs_, says:
The first authentic mention of the dominant race in the Hungary
of to-day, the Magyars, dates from the year 836, when the Greek
writer, Leo Grammaticus, styles them successively by the three
distinct names of “Hungarians,” “Turks” and “Huns.” They are
then referred to as encamped on the banks of the Lower Danube.
Their origin and early history are alike shrouded in mystery.
Nothing is more difficult than to describe the exact type
of the Magyar race. In fact there is no exact type, the
Magyars of the present type being a conglomeration of all the
numerous tribes that came into the land at the time of the
wars of the “home-making.” Several types exist, but which is
the true Magyar it would be difficult to say. If there were
a clue to this it would be known with absolute certainty
whether the Hungarians were descended from the Fin-Ugor or
Turko-Tartaric races. Among the different types there is the
somewhat round head, very broad cheek bones and square jaw of
the Mongol type--mostly to be found in the southern and midland
districts--called purely Hungarian. Then again, there are other
types which have a resemblance to the Kirgiz living in Asia
to this day. The majority are not tall--rather under middle
size--especially in the working classes. They are very broad
in the chest, square-shouldered, long of body, short of limb,
very active, with sinews of steel--the true horsy race, the
greater part of their life having been spent on horseback in
olden times. The language is a mixture of the Turko-Tartaric
and the Fin-Ugor, but much changed by time. They are seldom
very dark, brown from the lightest shade to the darkest being
the prevailing colour, with dark or brown eyes; but blue eyes
are often to be seen. Red, yellow, or flaxen hair is not a
Hungarian type. A fighting nation _par excellence_, who,
through circumstances, had to give up war, sought and seek to
fight in other ways; the great predisposition for duels even at
the present day has its origin in the ever-existing and only
half-dormant desire to fight.
The Magyars are one of the few peoples in Europe who do not belong to
the Aryan race. Among the others are the Finns and Lapps, the Basques
and the Turks. To the Finns the Magyars are closely related by speech
as well as blood.
The old song says:--
Eyes of neither grey nor blue
But of tawny velvet hue,
Head with nut-brown tresses laden
Is the real Magyar maiden.
[Illustration: A PAPRIKA-SELLER, KALOCSA]
Warlike the Magyar still is, and proud as Lucifer, yet with a strange
mingling of Oriental calm. None others are so philosophic as the
dwellers in the great plain of Hungary, the Alföld, where they follow
their occupations as shepherds or wheat-growers. They take the good
with the bad and are resigned to evils they cannot cure. We have
already noted the special characteristics of the Alfölder in connection
with his boundless home. But others of the nation share some of his
qualities. Those who have been most among the Hungarians speak of their
simplicity; they are in all things natural. If when at table with them
you want more food, you must ask for it; they will not force it on you.
It is there; they take for granted that you know they are only too
glad for you to have it. If therefore you want it you have only to say
so; anything else is affectation. Their hospitality is proverbial and
resembles that of the East. Never is any one allowed to pass without
being fed or lodged if need be, and however lowly the accommodation
there are no pretended apologies; this is the best they have and they
give it you, and they don’t consider that it needs any apology. In the
words of another traveller, “You are made to feel that your presence
among them is a genuine piece of good luck.”
Though much alive and of an artistic and musical temperament, and ready
to go half-mad when worked up in the national dance, the _csardas_, the
Magyar is generally quiet and philosophic. Dancing is the favourite
pastime all over the land, and every man, woman, and child can dance to
admiration.
Men and women both marry young, and the unmarried of either sex are
almost unknown; marriage is as natural and universal an act as birth or
death.
Like all proud high-spirited races, who allow for other people’s
dignity as well as their own, the Magyars have excellent natural
manners; it has been said of them that they are a nation of gentlemen.
A very strange being indeed is the Magyar peasant, mysterious as his
country’s history; he has sympathy with gloom and melancholy reveries,
and is fond of brooding in a seeming lethargy when his heart is ready
to kindle with all the fire of a crusader. When free from his daily
labour, in his happiest moments, he is marked by sudden transitions.
Apparently happy, he quickly becomes sad, soon to burst forth into
exultation, only to plunge again into grief, which always marks the
end of his frolicsome episodes. He is not easy to cheer by incitements
which put heart into other people, for he does not readily respond to
this sort of thing. There is a saying that the “Hungarian enjoys life
with weeping eyes,” just as the Britishers are supposed to take their
pleasures sadly, and it is true that a vein of melancholy runs through
the folk-songs and ballads of Hungary. The gipsy who wants to rouse the
Hungarian peasant has to begin plaintively and rise into gaiety if he
wishes to catch his attention.
As is perhaps natural considering that his life was passed fighting for
his country’s nationality, Petöfi’s poems strike mostly a wailing note
such as:
A cloud o’er my country there hangs,
That tells of a storm approaching;
My soul in foreboding its pangs
Gains strength to resist its encroaching.
The harp of my fingers is weary,
Too long have I struck it with pain;
Well knows it my heart has been dreary,
In wearing its strings out in vain.
Or:
TO THE STORK
The winter time is over and the fields are growing green,
And thou once more art here, bird so good,
To build thy nest again where it before hath been,
To hatch therein again thy feathery fledgling brood.
Away! Away! Be cheated not
By the sunbeam’s glittering quiver,
By the babbling of the river;
Away! Spring comes not to the spot,
Life is benumbed and frozen up for ever.
Oh! walk not through the fields, there is nothing there but graves;
Oh! roam not by the lake-side, blood-crimsoned are its waves;
Oh! fly not to the house-tops, all there that thou shalt find
Are but the reeking embers that ruin left behind.
* * * * *
We are dying--
We are scattered far and wide
Like a sheaf by storm untied.
Some lie within the tomb,
Some in the prison’s gloom,
Others wander in their sadness dumb with woe.
Some with a start arise,
Terror gleaming in their eyes,
To seek another fatherland beyond the Atlantic’s flow.
It is of course difficult to give any idea of originals when they are
translated into a tongue alien from that in which they were written,
and especially is it impossible to judge of the pathos of these
national songs without the wild melancholy tunes to which they are sung.
In spite of his tendency to melancholy the Magyar can be cheerful
enough and is a good fellow; he makes a particularly good husband and
father.
The women are treated well and take their full share in all that goes
on. Hungary has from time immemorial given women equal rights with men
in regard to property. If a woman marries she is entitled to half her
husband’s property in addition to her own, and in case of divorce takes
it with her. A man must, by law, leave half his property to his wife.
Ten years ago it was unusual to find any girl of good class working
for her living, but now the universal receipt for happiness is allowed
freely to women as well as men. In the universities all courses are
open to them except theology and law, the last with a reason maybe, as
law is one of the requirements expected from a man entering the public
service. Medicine, however, is thrown open, and there are even women
doctors employed by the State.
Almost all Hungarian women are excellent cooks, and make an abundance
of the highly seasoned tasty dishes in which their nation delights. The
little strips of bacon, rolled in the national paprika or red pepper,
are universally enjoyed. Strangers find the Hungarian cooking a little
too rich for their taste, as a rule.
Black coffee and tea made with tepid water are to be met everywhere;
buffalo milk is preferred by the peasants, when they use any, to cow’s
milk, which is considered thin. Sheep’s milk cheese is to be met with
in almost every cottage, and bread sprinkled with carraway seeds is
as ubiquitous as in Germany. Otherwise mutton and pork are generally
procurable, beef less frequently, and skinny chickens if demanded.
Rich cream sauces, smoked sausages and red pepper form ingredients of a
large number of dishes. Eggs and butter are cheap, and boiled butter is
used largely as hair oil.
The Slavs, who form a full half of the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy, are of another race altogether. Whether or no their ancestors
were the original inhabitants of Eastern Europe is a disputed point,
but certainly they have peopled vast tracts of it; the whole of Russia
for instance, Bulgaria, Illyria, Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, Bohemia,
and Croatia are all occupied by Slav peoples to-day. They are held to
be a branch of the Aryan race, and are peaceful and agricultural in
their habits, not warlike as the Magyars are. In the north part of the
Empire they are usually fair, with blue eyes, and the children have a
bleached appearance. Those who live up in the mountains exist chiefly
on potatoes and cabbage or maize bread, and are often desperately poor.
They are generally Catholics, Roman Catholicism being the dynastic
religion of the Emperor. Numbers of the Slavs emigrate to America, in
the hope of making enough money to return to their wild fastnesses in
comfort.
Among the Slavonic races the Czechs are the most advanced, in spite of
their difficult and unpronounceable language. They have behind them a
national history, coherent and full of stirring incident. This tends
to give them racial self-respect, and though they have succumbed to
pressure and become an integral part of the Austrian Empire the spirit
of nationality is gaining rather than losing in vitality.
The Roumanians are numerically the next in order in the Empire, and
they are different again, having a touch of Latin blood, and being tall
and dark-eyed and generally possessing very black hair. They tend sheep
and work in the forests as their principal avocations. The Roumanians
of the Empire live chiefly in Transylvania adjoining their own country,
though separated from it by the Southern Carpathians.
Mr. Drage in _Austria-Hungary_ says:
The Slavonic races occupy an unfavourable geographical position
in Hungary, which, together with their internal feuds,
weakens their influence. The Slovak, who lives chiefly in the
north-west, is “poor, hard-working, honest and superstitious,”
full of curious beliefs; but the epithet “stupid” cannot
be applied to a race which, apart from Pan-Slavist writers
like Kollar and Stur, produced the great Magyar poet of the
revolution, Alexander Petöfi, and the great Magyar national
hero, Louis Kossuth. The Ruthenian also is poor and backward;
his holdings are minutely subdivided, and he lacks education.
Croat and Serb are on a somewhat higher plane, and in spite of
their intestinal quarrels they are by no means a factor to be
neglected. The Wallachs or Roumans again, in spite of their
numbers, are plunged into depths of ignorance and superstition,
from which their Popes are unable to rescue them owing to their
own ignorance and lack of moral influence over their flocks.
The Magyar looks down upon the Wallach with an amused contempt,
while the Saxons regard them very much as the Boers regard the
Kaffirs.
While speaking of the races of the Dual Monarchy we must not forget two
important, though scattered, divisions of the people to be found all
over Austria and Hungary. These are the gipsies and the Jews.
The gipsies, in Hungarian “csigany” or “tsigane,” are an integral part
of the nation, and the Hungarians would be hard put to it to know how
to do without them, as they appear at all festivities of a social kind
and play to the dancing or singing of the merry-makers. There is a
gipsy quarter in every village, and its inhabitants are generally very
poor, the children often running about without a strip of clothing on
their little bodies. Both men and women are very dark, with gleaming
white teeth and wild black hair. They are crafty, wheedling, and
dishonest, and not averse from horse-stealing, but passionately
fond of music. They are as a rule a fine upstanding race, and pride
themselves on their small hands and feet; they can endure great fatigue
and are practically weather-proof. Childishly light-hearted and vain,
quick-tempered and with their hand against every man, to them the races
who are not gipsies are dull and heavy-witted, stupid and slow, made
to be taken advantage of. The gipsies develop quickly, and grow old,
especially the women, before middle life, but the old gipsy crones seem
even more able to wile the money from the pockets of the Gentiles than
the younger members of the race, and their skill in fortune-telling is
certainly remarkable. Their origin is disputed, but the common idea
that they are somehow connected with Egypt is erroneous, though gipsies
are found in Egypt as well as in almost every other country in the
world, and they are there celebrated for their skill in snake-charming.
Like the Jews they are a race apart, and they preserve their own
characteristics in a most extraordinary way considering that they live
amidst alien peoples.
The women have a knack of wearing even rags in such a queenly style
that they appear more like draperies than made-up clothes, and they
have an almost royal carriage which seems to be natural to them.
Living in the midst of dirt and squalor, sometimes by preference,
yet when they come to the towns and villages to play the young men
get themselves up in dandyish fashion, and their command of their
instruments is marvellous. In most cases they play by ear and can pick
up anything.
The Jews are found all over Hungary also and are looked upon with
almost as much scorn as the gipsies, with the difference that they
are feared. The great distinction between Jew and gipsy lies in the
money-making and money-saving aptitude of the former, his reticence,
and the fact that he rarely lets himself go.
Taking Hungary by itself we find the races at the present day
number:--Magyars, 9,000,000; Wallachians, 3,000,000; Slovaks,
2,000,000; Germans, (including Saxons), 2,000,000; Serbo-Croatians,
1,700,000; Servians, 1,000,000; Ruthenians, 400,000. Besides these
there are Wends, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews and gipsies, and
some Italians in and around Fiume.
The diversity of tongues in a comparatively small area is appalling,
and that they are tongues carrying their speakers nowhere out of their
own country is a hardship. Many men are met who speak German, Polish,
Hungarian, and Roumanian, and others with other varieties of speech.
Yet the Hungarians do not like you to address them in German; they
prefer French, which many of them understand imperfectly, or even
English. To begin in German is to imply that you classify them as
Austrian subjects and that is resented as a subtle insult. Latin used
to be the language for official and religious uses all over the country
until well into the nineteenth century. It took the place as the
general medium of communication for well-bred people that French played
in England in the Middle Ages.
Everywhere, as means of travel increase, the men and women of different
races tend to become more alike in their dress, and in so doing lose
much of their charm for other nations. When one travels one does not
want to see familiar clothing, dull and uniform as Western civilisation
can make it, but glowing pictures that stimulate the imagination and
carry one back to the Middle Ages. Peasants, however, quite naturally,
as they go into the towns from their quiet sheepfolds and hillsides
and valleys, consider it more “fashionable” to dress as the townsfolk
do, and the townsfolk who visit other countries soon drop anything
peculiar in their garb which marks them out for unpleasant notice,
and so the chain goes on. Only in far-away places, as a rule, with
few railway facilities and no civilised comforts, is the national
dress preserved in proud integrity. Of all the countries in Europe,
Hungary probably preserves the most singular and picturesque peasant
costumes, and as her railway system is excellent and her comforts for
travellers reasonable (in places first-rate), more and more do those
who want a complete change from their usual surroundings gravitate
there. The purity of the air in most parts still permits white to be
worn for daily use and in some districts the women, and even the men,
dress still almost completely in white. But this is not, and cannot
be, universal, though almost everywhere may be seen the “bishop’s
sleeves” of snowy muslin or linen coming out from a sleeveless jacket
richly embroidered. This jacket varies much in shape and size, most
often being like a zouave, and the embroidery work upon it is a joy to
behold, for every peasant woman, be she Magyar or Slav, can embroider
to perfection. It is not only her jacket of velvet or cloth or silk
that receives this tender attention but the waistcoats of her men-folk,
and more curious still, the top-boots of soft leather, often crimson,
without which at one time no Hungarian costume was considered
complete. They even appear in the peasant’s songs, such as:
With csarda hat set jauntily,
And decked with perfumed rosemary,
I’ll stroll adown the village street.
How all the girls will smile on me!
Wrinkled my top-boots are and long,
Upon their heels gilt spurs shine bright;
They’ll clank the time to dance and song.
How all the girls will smile to-night!
[Illustration: WOMAN’S WORK-DAY COSTUME IN KALOCSA]
Pieces of metal are put upon the heels of the boots in order to make
them clank and attract attention. These top-boots, so valued and
well-cared for, are still seen far and wide. It has been said of them
by a Hungarian writer, “that they may be taken as the most distinctive
feature of Hungarian dress, the ornamentation of which, a veritable
flower-garden, embroidered with leather, braid and silk, is a treasure
of the Magyars unique of its kind.”
If this treasure was handed on from one generation to another
difficulties might occur, as, even in the same family, striking
discrepancies in the sizes of feet appear. The Hungarian girl, with
her smart top-boots, necessarily wears short skirts to show them off,
and if there is one feature which is observable in the peasants’
costumes, in widely-separated districts, it is the sensible short
skirt usually reaching just below the knees. Now when some of the
girls in the towns are finding it easier and more economical to wear
slippers and brilliantly-coloured stockings, leaving the top-boots
for special occasions, the shortness of the skirt has been slightly
modified, and it sometimes reaches even to the heels. The next point
is its voluminousness. It is made immensely full and pleated into the
waistband with as many pleats as it can be made to take. The more
skirts a girl can put on, one over another, the more is she to be
envied and admired of her companions. She sometimes bears a burden
of ten or twelve, which, all being trained to stand out as far as
possible, give her the appearance of a rather substantial ballet-girl.
It is in some of the towns of the Alföld such as Szeged that the
everyday peasant costumes can be seen best. Here slippers are to be
observed at every turn, for slipper-making is one of the most popular
industries of the busy town.
Imagine the peasant woman then with white sleeves, short sleeveless
coat, full skirts and soft top-boots, and you have the outlines.
But upon them what a variety of detail! The head may be tied up in
a handkerchief, or with a shawl sometimes of sombre colour, but in
certain districts certain hues seem to predominate; there is one where
a real vivid orange-yellow, the colour of a mandarin’s robe, appears
at every turn, here in a simple handkerchief, there in a shawl folded
crosswise over the bosom, and even in a pair of long stockings rising
in serene contrast from green or purple shoes.
The quaintest costumes of all are to be seen on high days in
the little town of Zsdjar, up in the Carpathians, not far from
Barlangliglet. The chief feature is a flat plaque of tomato-coloured
satin, fastened to the knot of hair at the back, and falling down like
a back-board set horizontally. It is fixed into the waist, and below
the waist comes out as three streamers hanging down the skirt. It must
be very uncomfortable, as, if loose enough to allow the head to bend,
it must push it forward when upright, and if tight when the owner is
erect, to bend must produce a strain on the already tightly drawn hair,
plastered with boiled butter to make it lie flat. The plaque is often
fastened by a brooch, and completely conceals all the hair except that
enveloping the head like a hood. When a number of girls so clad are
seen from the back on an open road, the effect is like a flock of odd
flamingoes, especially if the skirts are white. Gold and silver braid
and much ornamentation are displayed on the bodices.
At Toroczko in Transylvania some of the most elaborate and expensive
costumes are worn. The girls wear white many-pleated skirts bordered
with decorations of red and black silk or coloured thread, sometimes
embroidered with beads, and they have red top-boots. The men wear white
cloth trousers with stripes of red tape, Hungarian top-boots, overcoats
of foxskin and black felt hats.
The handkerchief or shawl is however only the simplest form of
headgear, and for more important occasions, jewelled embroidered
caps, which receive almost as much attention as the boots, are worn,
while every bit of finery a girl can pick up, incongruous or not, she
puts into her cap with the assiduity of a bower-bird adorning its
nest. Every girl makes her own bridal veil and the little cap she
is to wear with it on that great day, which, in a country where the
sexes are pretty equal in numbers, is sure to arrive if she is not too
particular. Some of the caps are only a groundwork for the curious and
elaborate head-dresses which rise from them--head-dresses with wings
of stiffened velvet or silk and carrying veils recalling the wimples
of the days of the English Edwards in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The appearance of these is sometimes so grotesque when seen
in some far-away little church in a village among the mountains as to
suggest a fancy ball; and the trimming, which looks picturesque at a
distance and outside, seems tawdry when seen near at hand in a mass
within four walls.
Even the babies wear caps, and the quaintest little objects they
sometimes are, with these glittering and fantastically worked
adornments constituting their sole clothing, their naked little bodies
looking almost too small for their millinery.
For smaller matters, every peasant woman loves jewellery, and no girl
is seen without a string of beads around her neck, and she often wears
several of different colours.
[Illustration: SUNDAY COSTUME, ZSDJAR]
The apron is a very important adjunct, and is not worn merely to
preserve the clothing but as an ornament in itself. There is generally
a plain one for the house and a decorated one for festivals and public
functions. It is seen of all sizes, materials and colours, from tiny
scraps of lace or silk to huge coloured ones, maybe purple with
orange stripes, or scarlet and black such as the Roumanians wear. The
Roumanians are peculiarly rich and choice in their dress, and some
of the most beautiful costumes of all are found in this part of the
country. The sleeve all made in one with the bodice, now so popular
in England under the name of “Magyar,” has been adopted from the
Hungarians.
The Wallach women living in Transylvania wear voluminous white
chemise-like garments, and their immense puffed sleeves are embroidered
in designs of red and blue. Their skirts may be a long piece of cloth
clasped by silver ornaments made in curious massive patterns, which
are repeated in their large earrings and in chains slung across their
chests, while often the scarlet corals at their necks carry out the
note of colour started in the crewel-work. The married women among them
wear a kind of turban, generally of white, wound around their heads,
while the younger ones as often as not go bareheaded, though they
sometimes wear a handkerchief. They age very quickly, and the peachlike
complexions and velvety dark eyes, which are most alluring, soon wither
and dim.
The men of Hungary are not far behind their gay mates. In certain
parts of the highlands they dress entirely in white, wearing short
jackets and trousers of white felt and huge brass-studded leather
belts. The felt and wool and linen in all the costumes was formerly
home-made, and warranted to stand any amount of wear. Alas! now cheap
imported cotton goods are quickly being substituted with disastrous
results.
The sleeveless waistcoat, with its fancy embroidery, and the top-boots
run parallel to these articles of the women’s attire, but one thing
peculiar to the Hungarian men is the curious habit of wearing a
top-coat without putting the arms into the sleeves. This is frequently
seen in widely different parts of the country. The coat _is_ a coat
and not a cloak, and why sleeves should be fashioned at all if never
for use is a problem that the Hungarian himself would find it hard to
solve. The adoption of this singular mode is to be seen in the uniform
of some of the British Hussar regiments. Possibly the custom has arisen
from the beloved and indispensable sheep-skin of the dweller in the
plains, which no Magyar shepherd would dream of going without. It is
just a great loose cover-all of sheep’s-wool, and it is worn skin side
out in fine weather and wool side out in the wet. It is the home,
the companion, the comforter of the Alfölder: when the sun scorches
down he makes a tent of it to shield him from the rays; when the icy
winds of winter roam like wolves howling over the plateau he snuggles
into it warm and safe. The skin side of this even does not escape
the attentions of the Magyar girl’s nimble fingers, and it is often
embroidered in elaborate and quaintly gay patterns.
Another curious feature of the costume of the men is found in the
extraordinarily wide and many-folded linen trousers, so full and ample
and short that they resemble a kilt and are the next step to the
well-known Albanian skirt of pleated linen. These end in top-boots and
make a very strange and noticeable item in the dress, especially when
many of the men are seen at work together in the cornfields.
The head-gear is various, but often takes the form of a felt hat with
saucer brim and ribbons not unlike that of the Breton peasant. This is
for summer; in winter a kind of cap of lamb-skin replaces it.
It must not, of course, be supposed that in such a town as Budapest
these gay costumes will be seen everywhere. It is necessary to get
out into the towns of the Alföld, to Temesvar or Debreczen, or into
Transylvania to see them, elsewhere up in the Carpathians far beyond
the well-known pleasure resorts of the High Tátra, and even then,
though the dress may be in essentials as described, it is only on high
days and holy days all the best materials, ribbons, laces, and gay
colours are to be seen in their glory.
CHAPTER VI
THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE
The Danube is the second largest river in Europe, its only superior
being the Volga. Out of its whole course of some 1750 miles about half
may be claimed by Austria-Hungary. Not only are the capitals of both
kingdoms situated on it, but the largest rivers in the Dual Monarchy
are its tributaries.
The general trend of the Danube in its course is fairly well known. It
enters Austria near Passau, and flows irregularly eastward to Vienna,
then, in something the same direction, on to Budapest, above which it
turns exceedingly sharply, almost at a right angle, and continues due
south.
On receiving the waters of the Drave on its right bank it reverts once
more to its original direction, continuing south-eastward. The Drave
is the northern boundary of Croatia-Slavonia, dividing it from Hungary
proper, of which at present it forms an unwilling part. The Theiss or
Tisza, which has crossed Hungary from the north in a roughly parallel
course to the Danube after Budapest, but with a much more irregular
course, now comes in on the left bank.
The Save shortly after runs in on the same side as the Drave, having
for the greater part of its course performed the useful function of
marking the boundary between the south of Croatia-Slavonia--which thus
lies between two rivers--and Bosnia, and then the reinforced Danube,
itself now the boundary between Hungary and Servia, flows to Orsova and
the world-famous Iron Gates, before passing on between Roumania and
Bulgaria to the Black Sea.
The Danube Steam Navigation Company, to say nothing of others, runs an
excellent series of steamboats, with reasonable fares, for all who care
to see something of the fine scenery through which the Danube passes in
part of its course. In winter the higher reaches are often frozen and
traffic is interrupted, but in summer the whole trip, from Passau to
the Iron Gates, is a delightful one, giving an insight into the heart
of the country. The danger from floods has been commented on, but this
is caused by melting snow and is not to be feared in summer. At one
time rapids made parts of the passage so dangerous that the sensation
surpassed mere excitement and became something worse, but by a steady
policy of clearing away difficulties and blowing up rocks much has been
done to render the passage safe without spoiling its fine effects.
Not the least interesting point of the trip is the strange medley of
nationalities one is sure to meet on the boat; Austrians, Germans,
Turks, Dalmatians, Jews, Slavs, and Hungarians are mingled in odd
disorder, and the clamour of tongues produces a veritable Babel. This
indeed gives a variety of life and colour often absent from other trips
which may have as much to offer in the way of scenery.
Passau itself, a quaint, old-fashioned, irregular place, is in Bavaria,
but as it is only a short distance from the Austrian border, it is
usually made the starting-place by those who wish particularly to
traverse Austria-Hungary. The river Inn, which flows into the Danube
at Passau, greatly increases its volume and gives another reason for
starting here. Not far below Passau, in mid-stream, standing out more
or less according to the state of the water, is the great rock which
breaks the current in twain and marks the meeting-place of the two
countries. This is called the Jochenstein, or Joachim’s stone. The
respective Governments have been careful to impress their insignia on
their own sides of it. There is something more impressive about an
unusual barrier like this, with the fugitive water speeding past it
from Bavaria into Austria at the rate of tons every second, than about
the more prosaic landmarks usually found.
The scenery, taken generally, is varied and beautiful; there are
sometimes stern cliffs standing out at an angle, so that the current
winds round to pass them, and sometimes they form a grand defile. Many
are bare and rocky, others fir-clad, and constantly the grey ruins of
an ancient castle may be seen perched on some boss, worn by age and
weather to a likeness of the rock on which it stands, an unconscious
manifestation that “protective” colouring is found elsewhere than in
living species and an argument against the theory associated with it!
Every castle has its own tradition, readily repeated and religiously
believed, like that of Schneiderschlossel, where a bishop and a goat
and a tailor are mixed in equal proportions, making up a capital story.
The unfortunate tailor attempted to throw a dead goat over a
precipice, but lost his balance and fell himself instead. His
mangled body, smashed up by the razor-edged rocks, was washed
down the stream. The country folk asserted that the goat was
no animal at all but the fiend himself playing the part of a
dead goat to tempt the tailor to his doom. To confirm this
it appeared that several of them had seen the goat leaping
up the precipices alive after the catastrophe. The bishop’s
chaplain thereupon sprinkled holy water over the precipice.
Now it happened that the tailor had been doing some work for
the bishop, and after his death it was discovered that he had
stolen at least a third of the glorious brocade which had been
given him to make the robe. Now, of course, the judgment which
had fallen on him was explained, for it was his impious theft
which had given the evil one this power over him. The offerings
of the pious to the bishop that year were doubled!
Englehardzell is the Austrian frontier house, for the real boundary
of the countries, otherwise than in the Danube, is marked by a small
stream a little below the Jochenstein.
Abrupt and steep, from either shore
The pine-clad precipices soar;
While oft, emerging from the wood,
In foam descends the mountain-flood.
At one point the river is contracted to half its usual width and
accordingly rushes onward with greater velocity than before; the hills
rise in varying heights from 600 to 1000 feet, and the turnings and
windings of the river are so complicated that one moment the steamer
heads north and some time later south, boxing the compass in her
ordinary course.
After the castle of Neuhaus, the original home of the Counts of
Schaumberg, the channel opens out and shows an entirely different
character, with numerous wooded islets and a more peaceful style of
beauty. We soon run past Mt. Calvary, the favourite pleasure-ground
of the people of the clean, prosperous, modern-looking town of Linz,
connected with an iron lattice bridge with the sister city of Urfahr.
Linz, however, is not by any means really modern, whatever its looks,
as its annals include the fact of its destruction by the Huns! It is
the chief town of Upper Austria, and was made a centre of occupation
by Napoleon in his octopus-like attempt to draw all Europe beneath
his sway. The great features of the neighbourhood are the hill of
Pöstlingberg, which can be reached by tram, and the massive castle
overlooking the Danube. It is interesting now in connection with the
observation cars put on to the Innsbruck-Salzburg-Linz-Vienna line as
an experiment in 1912.
The scenery below Linz, though attractive, lacks grandeur, and is
chiefly of the willow and lowland order, numerous osier-covered islands
appearing in every reach. The river Enns gives its name to the town
situated on it, and flows into the Danube nearly opposite to the
ancient castle of Spielberg. Before this we have passed the castle of
Tillysberg and the monastery of St. Florian--the former called after
Marechal Tilly, the terrible soldier who, before he was defeated at
Leipsic, used to boast he had never been in love, never been drunk, and
never lost a battle!
St. Florian, who lived in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, was
put to death by being flung into a river with a stone tied round his
neck, hence his peculiar fame for assistance in putting out fires.
The invocation to him ran, “O Florian, martyr and saint! Keep us,
we beseech thee, by night and by day from all harm by fire or other
casualties of this life!” The monastery dedicated to him is very large;
the greater part of it was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, but some
of it dates from the thirteenth.
Before reaching Grein, the scenery once more grows grand, and the town
itself lies above the Strudel and Wirbel, once places of great dread
owing to the rocks and rapids. But much of the danger has been done
away by blasting the rocks; though necessarily some picturesque effects
have vanished at the same time, still the increased safety has not been
too dearly bought. The real variety and beauty of the scenery cannot be
properly understood by those who merely rush through.
The island of Worth splits the channel into two. It has a ridge of rock
on the north side and this rises in contrast to the base of soft white
sand which forms a “silver strand” when the current is not swollen
unduly. The chief pinnacle is of course adorned by the inevitable ruin,
and this is further signalised by a large crucifix, at sight of which
the peasants cross themselves.
The tremendous task of cutting or blowing away masses of rock from
the river channel took about eight years, and during the winter the
workmen occupied Worth Island. The Horse-Shoe water-course, built of
freestone, skirting the north side of the island, was planned by the
engineer Liske, and the great undertaking was completed by blowing off
tons of the Kellerrock, a length measuring over 160 feet. The second
terror, the Wirbel, has now altogether disappeared. It was a whirlpool
occasioned by the meeting of the two streams which flowed fast around
a long tongue of rock 18 feet or so above water normally and 150 yards
long by a third as broad. This was less than three-quarters of a
mile below the Strudel, and boats and rafts just recovered from the
one had to plunge into the eddies and whirlpools of the other at very
great risk of being swamped altogether. The cause was in reality simple
enough and easily to be understood, being that one stream came up
against the impetuous force of the other almost at right angles, but
the peasant mind, revelling in the supernatural, invested it with all
the mystery of the unknown, and strange tales of weird wraiths rising
from unfathomable depths added to the terrors of the passage, and the
great circles of the eddying water, reaching sometimes to 50 feet in
circumference, were looked upon as a kind of trap peopled by sirens.
This was hardly wonderful, as at times the inside vortex was 5 feet
deep like a funnel or cup.
[Illustration: RUMANIAN CHILDREN BRINGING WATER TO BE BLESSED IN THE
GREEK CHURCH, DESZE]
The railway which we met at Linz took a curve to the south, and it is
not until after the junction with the river Ybbs we meet it again. The
white castle of Persenbeug stands up conspicuously near, with the town
of the same name close at hand. The castle of Weiteneck, the monastery
of Mölk, are both wonderful, but the latter compels the greatest
attention. It is huge and completely eclipses the little town attached
to it. The grandeur of its lines, the splendour of its interior finish,
mark it out as a palace among monasteries. Its cupolas and long ranges
of windows give it an individual note. Inside, the library is a truly
princely room, no less in its adornment than the valuable books and
manuscripts it contains.
Enough has been said to show that the stretch of the Danube between
Passau and Vienna fairly bristles with scenic and historic interest,
but two more castles at least must be mentioned, that of Aggstein,
standing aloof and remote on its towering pinnacle of rock, and that of
Dürrenstein, where Richard Cœur de Lion was imprisoned.
In the good old days, when might was right and opportunity
justification, these robber barons, perched on their mountain tops,
commanded the reaches of the river and levied toll to their liking on
the luckless men whose business compelled them to pass by water.
As to Dürrenstein, it has special claims to attention. Richard had
managed to offend Leopold of Bavaria in the crusades in the Holy Land,
and on his way home, being shipwrecked near Trieste, wandered through
his enemy’s country until he was seized, imprisoned, and held to
ransom. None of his unfortunate subjects knew where he was, and the
story goes that his minstrel Blondin, wandering for many months in
disguise, at length found him out by singing the first verse of a song
Richard had himself composed, to which the monarch responded by the
second verse. Whether this happened at Dürrenstein or at Trifels, where
he was afterwards removed, remains in doubt.
If Aggstein is fine, Dürrenstein is more so, because the crumbling
ruins, mounted on a peak and surrounded by torn and precipitous
fragments, appeal more peculiarly to English-speaking people owing to
the halo of romance. The walls are fast falling to pieces, the stones
and pinnacles that stand are hardly distinguishable from the curiously
vertical and narrow lumps of rock which rear themselves at all heights
around; the railway has driven a wedge through the very rock in which
the building was founded, yet a granite mass is pointed out still as
the chamber in which Richard was confined for fifteen weary months!
With the considerable market-town of Krems we end the bit of the Danube
known as the Wachau, which began at Mölk, and is the favourite “short
trip” of the citizens of Vienna, who are carried thence by rail and
river in hundreds during the fine-weather season. Happy they to have
such delightful scenery within such easy reach.
After Krems the scenery is again tame to Vienna and calls for no
special comment, except for the castle of Greifenstein with its
romantic story. From this castle there is a fine panorama of forest
and plain and of the island-bestudded Danube itself. Before reaching
Vienna, pass Klosterneuberg, and finally see the branch of the river,
known as the Danube canal, going off, only to rejoin the main stream
below the city.
CHAPTER VII
VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE
The exclusiveness of the Court of Vienna has become a byword; so
strictly is the right of entry criticised that few indeed of those who
pass through the country ever gain a glimpse of the highest circles
of all. The nobles of Austria-Hungary rigidly keep within their class
limits; they do not meet and mingle with the upper middle class as is
the custom in so many countries; there is no overlapping, no exchange
of social courtesies; marriages are confined to their own class, and a
girl who marries outside it is considered an outcast. The aristocracy
suffer therefore from a lack of fresh blood in their veins; they are
not constantly recruited either by marriages or by the ennobling of
commoners as in England, where--though it may be a source of merriment
to see the tide of peerages setting in this or that way according
to the political party in power--at all events there is always a
constant stream of new life flowing toward the upper classes. And the
aristocrats do not suffer. There is a marvellously refining influence
in place and state and dignity, and the third generation of the
soap-earl or the brewer-baron takes his place as naturally and easily
in gentle society as the son of a hundred earls.
The Austrian nobles, however, would never receive recently ennobled
peers. The sixteen quarterings are to them a necessary passport to
friendliness. It is said that on one occasion when an Austrian noble
had been setting forth the impossibility of associating with those he
did not consider his equals, the Emperor rebuked him by saying, “If
I, like you, wished to confine myself to the society of my equals, I
should have to go down into the Capuchin vault [where the Hapsburgs are
buried] to find them.”
Not only by the want of new blood do the nobles of the Dual Monarchy
suffer, but also from an exclusiveness in regard to the occupations
that they consider it dignified for their sons to follow. In England
not so very long ago there were only three openings for the sons
of gentlemen--Law, the Church, or the Services--and the Austrian
nobleman has not arrived even so far as that. To him politics and the
army are the only openings, and by this narrowing and stultification
of interests originality and initiative are deadened. All the
healthy energetic life that might be his is monopolised by the upper
middle classes, who prosper accordingly, and have an upper class or
aristocracy of their own. Though the government of the country is in
reality an oligarchy, very different from the autocracy of its great
neighbour Germany, yet at the same time it is the class below that
of the nobility which gets the most fun out of life and is most in
evidence.
The Austrians are naturally bright and pleasure-loving, for on the
basis of their German ancestry, which gives them a certain simplicity,
are implanted the livelier qualities of the French and Italians, with
which races their own has mingled. It is to this mingling with other
nations that the noble classes have survived at all and not died out
enfeebled by marriages with too near kin. Mr. Whitman sums up some of
the foreign alliances thus:
The Princes Rohan point to Brittany; the Princes
Mensdorf-Pouilly, the Counts Dampierre, the Bouquoy to France;
the Hoyos to Spain; the Princes Croy, the Counts Fiquelmont to
Belgium; the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin to Lorraine; the Princes
Odescalchi, Clasy, Montenuovo, the Counts Palavacini, Bianchi,
Paar, Montecuculli, and many others to Italy. Moreover, the
aristocratic population of Austria itself has long had nearer
home, in the Hungarian, the Polish, the northern Italian
aristocratic element, a large variety of noble blood with which
to renovate itself, and thus to counteract the ill effects so
often seen in princely houses of too close intermarriage.
The sorrows which have fallen on the royal house, and the great
age of the Emperor have thrown a shadow over the nobility. But the
middle-class people are not affected by it. A gayer, brighter, and
withal more orderly crowd is rarely to be found in the capital of
any kingdom. The Austrian takes his pleasure lightly, sipping his
national wines beneath the avenues of trees in the wide boulevards. He
revels in good music and fine acting. He is not extravagant and keeps
wonderfully early hours. As is natural in such a cosmopolitan country,
every race may be found represented on the boulevards and in the cafés.
Greeks, Turks, Jews, Czechs, Germans, Slavs, and Magyars are to be met
everywhere.
Oddly enough it is the Hungarian noblemen who are chiefly responsible
for the exclusiveness of the Court at Vienna. It is they who, in
acknowledging the Hapsburgs as their rulers, have imbued their
fellow-subjects, the Austrians, with their own haughty temper. It is
impossible to help mentioning here, rather than under the heading
of their own capital, Budapest, the names of some of the princely
Hungarian families such as the Esterhazys, whose castles stud the
country in the neighbourhood of Buda. The estates of this one family
alone cover an area equal to Ireland in extent, and include sixty towns
and between 400 and 500 villages. Stories are told of the hauteur of
the earlier Esterhazys, as when one of them remarked, “Below the rank
of Baron no one exists,” and another who happened to be present at one
of the famous Holkham sheep-shearings said casually to his host, the
Earl of Leicester, that he possessed as many shepherds as the earl had
sheep! Travel and mingling with the aristocracy of other countries has
widened the views of later Esterhazys as to their own importance, and
more than one of them is a welcome visitor to the English Court. It
would be impossible indeed for any visitor not peculiarly favoured by
introductions to get a glimpse of the interior of any of their feudal
castles which still exist, such as that of Fraknó in the county of
Sopron, the property of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, which stands high
on an outcrop of rock and has fortified walls all round. There are
twenty-one country seats belonging to the Esterhazys, ranging from a
specimen such as this, through fine palaces, to huge modern buildings.
There are acres of gardens, miles of forest, a famous racecourse and
parks without end attached to these mansions. There are other names
also rivalling that of Esterhazy, such as that of the Prince Festetics,
and many another. But we have wandered far from Vienna.
The town itself consists of a rather small kernel enclosed by the
celebrated Ringstrasse, a tree-lined boulevard, built over the old
fortifications removed in 1858; beyond this an immense outer ring of
suburbs is cut by a second promenade. The old saying that “Vienna is
the least part of itself” is true more than ever now when it overflows
farther and farther on to the broken vine-clad slopes which surround it.
[Illustration: VIENNA: CASTLE SCHOENBRUNN]
It has little left of ancient interest, if we except the Cathedral
of St. Nicholas, and the situation lacks any sort of charm. The town
lies in the flat plain beside a canal. This canal is as a bow to the
string of the river Danube, and was made in order to bring water
facilities to the capital. The difficulty is to imagine why this
particular place was chosen as a site rather than any other. On one
side at a distance of a mile or so are the heights of Kablenburg and
Leopoldsburg, which can be reached by rail, and from which the whole
place can be seen lying unfolded like a map. The canal with its many
bridges curves round at one’s feet, and at the outermost rim of its bow
is the town with many fine buildings, including the Cathedral, standing
up conspicuously out of the mass of lower ones. Away to the south is
the lumpy hill of Wagram where Napoleon won a hard-fought battle. The
city has tasted not once but many times in its history the bitterness
of capture and was twice occupied by the all-conquering Napoleon.
But if the site shows little to attract attention, the town itself
is full of charm, which is felt at once by any foreigner visiting
it. Though the architecture shows Italian influence, yet it is
characteristic and different from anything seen elsewhere; it carries
its own stamp and is Viennese. Then there is a peculiar lightness and
brightness in the streets for which it is difficult to account; it
is somewhat the same atmosphere as that of Paris, but again has its
own distinctive flavour. Everywhere in the boulevards, the shops,
the cafés, one meets the same willingness to help, the same cheerful
courtesy, the same attractive simplicity of manner; there is nothing
over-elaborated or forced. There is plenty of light and air, and if
Vienna cannot boast the attractions of ancient buildings, she can boast
all the advantages of a modern city.
The chief features of the town are the Cathedral of St. Stephen, the
Royal Palace of Schönbrunn, and the Prater.
The Cathedral, founded in 1144, is in an ornate style of Gothic, and
its soaring spire, seen far and wide over the country, is balanced and
finished by the pointed lesser towers, the gables and the windows, so
that the principal note is one of uplifting. At one time the building,
like most old churches, was encumbered by a mass of houses, hovels,
etc., which clung to its sides like barnacles, but these were all
swept away, and the glorious architecture is now seen to advantage.
The celebrated tomb of Frederick IV. in the choir is of red marble
ornamented by more than 300 figures and subjects. The whole building
is one of the finest existing monuments of old German architecture in
existence. The lofty vaulting of the nave is supported by eighteen
pillars. Anton Pilgram’s chancel is particularly deserving of study,
and the visitor should not miss the thirty-eight altars of sculptured
marble. Most notable is the High Altar with the sculpture of the
Stoning of St. Stephen.
Not far from the Cathedral is the Church of the Capuchins with its
royal vault wherein are buried many of the Hapsburg line, including
Maria Teresa and her husband. Noteworthy also are the Italian
National Church, containing the monument of Metastasio, the Church
of St. Ruprecht, founded in the eighth century, the remains of the
Burgkapelle, or Court Chapel, and the Salvator Chapel in the former
town hall.
The Schönbrunn Palace, which lies outside Vienna, has been added to
and altered by many succeeding sovereigns and is especially celebrated
for its beautiful gardens. It is rather formal in architecture, and
is best seen from the “Gloriette,” standing on rising ground, and
affording splendid views all round, either from the terrace or the
roof. The Imperial residence in Vienna itself is called the Hofburg, a
conglomeration of buildings of various ages.
Even those who have never been to Vienna have heard of the Prater,
the public park, comparable with the Row or the Champs Elysées,
which covers many miles in extent and stretches to the Danube. Here
the fashionable Viennese ride and drive. The entrance to the Prater
is usually rather surprising, as the first part is a veritable fair
dedicated to shops and book-stalls. At festival times with the flaring
illuminations, the noise and fun and jollity, it resembles nothing
else, but has an atmosphere peculiarly its own. The open-air cafés and
seats and bands are much patronised by the lower middle classes in the
evening on ordinary occasions.
In his most interesting book, _The Realm of the Habsburgs_, Mr. Whitman
says:
Unlike many other towns, even Berlin, where festivity among
the lower orders frequently degenerates into rowdyism, there
is something strikingly pleasurable and Austrian about
merry-making here. Even in places of amusement of a more or
less boisterous kind, such as music-halls and dancing-saloons,
if there is anybody who misbehaves himself, it may be an
intoxicated aristocratic _Trottel_ who has returned from the
races, but it will hardly ever be a true Viennese.
The fine Imperial Opera House is noted all over Europe. As a musical
nation the Dual Monarchy ranks second only to Germany, and the Blue
Hungarian band or the Austrian band are now essential parts of every
gay gathering in lands far beyond the bounds of Europe. How many a
young couple has floated in realms of an ideal delight to the strains
of an Austrian waltz! Music is part of the life of the Austrian, and
the opera house is a national concern, as are also the chief theatres.
The names of Austrian composers are legion, for the national genius
seems to take this direction more easily than that of literature. Among
them is that of Johann Strauss, composer of waltzes, blessed in many
countries, many climes; from torrid to Arctic zones his lilting music
moves the feet and no less the hearts of those in youth’s spring-time.
He was born at Vienna in 1804, and is not the only one of his name
to win fame with his music. His playing was only second to his gifts
of composition, and when he visited England at the time of Queen
Victoria’s coronation he won the favour of all music-lovers. He died
of scarlet fever at Vienna in 1849. His three sons all inherited his
musical talent, though in less degree.
The University at Vienna takes high rank and there are good schools in
abundance. Altogether Vienna is a gay, self-respecting, pleasant town,
which attracts those who have visited it to repeat their visits year
after year.
No account of Vienna, however curtailed, could be complete without
reference to Baden, which, though some distance away, is linked up by
a good railway service with the capital, and is so much patronised
by the citizens as to constitute a suburb. The very name carries its
own explanation, for it is the natural mineral baths that have made
the fame of Baden, though it must not be confused with the greater
Baden-Baden in Germany. The only drawback to the place is its excessive
popularity, which causes it to be submerged beneath waves of trippers
at holiday times. The hot sulphur baths are equal to any in existence,
and the music and dancing and entertainments of all kinds draw many who
have no desire to improve their health to the gay watering place.
CHAPTER VIII
A MIGHTY QUARTETTE
In music Austria has ever taken a foremost place, and numbers among
her sons some of the names that have become part of the world’s
history. Perhaps the greatest of all is that of Mozart, the little
Wolfgang, born in 1756, first of “musical prodigies,” who, as an
innocent curly-haired child, sat up in his little night-shirt, lost in
the melody which overflowed every corner of his being. His father was
a violinist of some repute, and so his case followed the well-known
law that geniuses are often the sons of those who have talent in the
same direction. At three years of age the baby Mozart played on the
harpsichord. He was born at Salzburg, a beautiful city, situated amid
glorious scenery, and often compared with Edinburgh or Stirling.
Neither Edinburgh nor Stirling, however, have the snow-mountains
immediately behind, providing a backing for the castle on its boss of
tree-grown hill, which rises abruptly from the plain. The snow-capped
Alps rise around, in tier after tier, deep pellucid lakes lie in the
shadows of the hills, and thick forests clothe the slopes. As the
sunlight wanders from peak to peak living beauties are revealed, and
the contrast of the glittering snow shining through the blue-black
sharp-pointed firs is one to stir the artist soul to life. Small wonder
that the spirit of music found her son in this ideal spot!
Salzburg has not always been the possession of Austria; indeed at the
time of Mozart’s birth it was not so, but being incorporated in the
Empire during the Napoleonic wars, it has since remained an integral
part of it. The town is at the present time a peculiarly desirable
centre for any visitor, as it stands on the line between Innsbruck and
Vienna over which the Observation Cars run, and is also the terminus of
that other line, similarly favoured, passing from here to Trieste.
At five Mozart performed in public, with his little sister of ten.
All the crowned heads of Europe took note of him, but he remained
unspoilt, being of a gentle and sensitive disposition. At Paris in 1763
he published his first compositions. In the following year the family,
still very poor in spite of his genius, visited England, where they
remained for some time. They eventually returned home, and at fourteen
Mozart was not only a finished musician but a noted composer. He
travelled widely, making a tour throughout Italy, and being everywhere
received with recognition and applause. The Empress Maria Teresa, at
that time reigning in Austria, gave him a watch set with diamonds and
enamelled with her own portrait.
The boy was appointed by the Archbishop of Salzburg, concert-meister,
a merely honorary appointment. Indeed, nothing is more astonishing
than the fact that during his whole life Mozart never was comfortable
in regard to money matters, and in spite of the astonishing number and
excellence of his compositions, in spite of his world-wide fame and
the great favour in which he was held by crowned heads, he was always
poor. In 1772 a new archbishop was appointed in place of the first one,
who had died, and this man was of a temperament not, unfortunately,
uncommon among those who are in positions of supreme authority in the
church, the precepts of whose Founder they set utterly at variance
with their lives. He was a bully, and did his best to make the life
of the simple-natured musician a torment to him. Mozart, who had
poured out concertos, masses, symphonies, cantatas, and even operas,
had apparently received very little payment as the result of all this
work, which indeed came as naturally to him as warbling to the birds.
He asked leave of his nominal employer to go on another tour with his
mother. The tyrannical archbishop refused, with insult, and apparently
kept the young musician by him for the sole purpose of insulting and
annoying him. His irony went so far as to forbid the young man leave
to resign his honorary appointment, to which under pressure a little
later he attached a small salary, but only apparently for the purpose
of binding the young musician more firmly in the toils. He was treated
like a servant by the archbishop, was not allowed to play anywhere
but in the palace, and was left to pay his own expenses. Mozart did
after a struggle get away temporarily, but the tour was not a success;
he fell in love unhappily, and when he returned his mother died. In
1782 he married the sister of his first love, and this step proved
disastrous; his wife was in no way his equal, and became a confirmed
invalid. He produced some of his greatest pieces in Vienna, but without
winning the applause they deserved, and when he was at length appointed
Kammermeister to the Emperor it was with what seems a ludicrously
inadequate salary. King Frederick William of Prussia offered him
five or six times as much, and when Mozart unwillingly informed his
own sovereign of the prospect thus opened to him he was accused of
ingratitude and, with his usual sensitiveness, abandoned the idea.
[Illustration: VIENNA: MOZART’S HOUSE]
He died in 1791 at the early age of thirty-five, and his last work
was the magnificent _Requiem_, which had a strange origin, for it had
been commissioned by a man who appeared incognito, offering to pay for
the work in advance. Mozart firmly believed that this stranger was a
messenger from the other world sent to warn him of his own death. He
accepted the commission and began to carry it out, but in the meantime
undertook other work which occupied his time. The stranger called again
and urged him on, and he made further headway, but when the stranger
came a third time the great composer was dead. The _Requiem_ was
completed by Süssmayer, and the stranger who had commissioned it turned
out to be Count Walsegg.
It is almost incredible to relate that this genius, whose work has
given his country an imperishable name, was buried in a pauper’s
grave, and that even the three “friends” who had set out to follow the
coffin turned back because it rained, and so the body was taken to its
resting-place unhonoured and alone.
During the lifetime of Mozart there was living also in Austria another
of the first-class stars whose appearance in the firmament of music is
so rare. Joseph Haydn was born in 1732 and was thus already a man of
twenty-four when little Wolfgang came into the world. Haydn was born
at Rohrau in Lower Austria, and was the second of the twelve children
of a wheelwright. The boy had a beautiful voice and evidently much
musical talent, so that a relation rescued him from a life of drudgery
and sent him to school, and he afterwards obtained an appointment among
the choir boys of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna--a very different
beginning from that of Mozart, who was accustomed to be familiarly
petted by crowned heads almost from his infancy. When his voice broke
Haydn kept himself by giving music lessons, and after following this
profession for some time, he brought out his first compositions. He was
fortunate enough to find several patrons who recognised his talent,
and chief among them the head of the great family of Esterhazy, who
made him chapel-master with an independent salary. He never broke his
connection with the Esterhazys, even to the day of his death.
Haydn, like Mozart, married the sister of his first love, and like him
also had an unhappy disillusionment. However, while he lived with the
Esterhazys, and particularly when he was at their princely country
seat, he was free from his wife’s unwelcome society. His compositions
were very various, and he lived always in the sunshine of his patron’s
encouragement. After the death of this prince his successor did away
with the orchestra, but treated Haydn handsomely as to money, and the
composer resolved to visit England. This he did in 1790, and he was
well received. It was on his return to Vienna that the great Beethoven
came to be his pupil. Haydn was never so successful in opera as in
his symphonies and oratorios, and the name of “father of instrumental
music” is sometimes given to him on account of his special works for
the orchestra. He died in 1809 at the age of seventy-seven. His life
was much less troubled and disturbed than Mozart’s, and his work is of
a different _genre_ altogether--a difference fully appreciated by those
who understand music.
But greatest of the mighty trio is Ludwig van Beethoven, who was not a
native of Austria, being born in Bonn in Germany in 1770. When he was
only seventeen he went over to Vienna to receive a few lessons from
Mozart, returning there again in 1792. Beethoven was not a prodigy as a
child, though he early displayed a great aptitude for music. His master
does not seem to have inspired him with any particular reverence;
in fact, in after years he is said to have refused him the title of
master, as he said he never learned anything from him. So greatly,
however, did the Austrian capital appeal to him, and so warm was the
reception accorded to him there, that he made it his headquarters, and
afterwards never left it for long. His first compositions, rendered
to an Austrian audience in 1795, placed him in a secure position,
and among his greatest admirers was his pupil the Archduke Rudolf.
Beethoven’s genius was of a different kind from that of Mozart, being
far less spontaneous and owing much more to hard and painful labour.
His originality was greater than that of Haydn, and in spite of
abstruseness and that incomprehensibility which must ever remain to
all but the few in some of the works of a master-spirit, he was always
appreciated and understood. However, in 1797, when only twenty-seven
years of age, a terrible calamity fell upon him for he began to be
deaf, an infirmity which rapidly increased; this did not prevent his
still carrying on the noble compositions, which by a terrible irony of
fate he himself could never hear, but it darkened his life and took
from him much of the joy of living. He never married, and died in 1827.
Beethoven’s compositions, 138 in number, comprise all the
forms of vocal and instrumental music, from the sonata to the
symphony--from the simple song to the opera and oratorio. In
each of these forms he displayed the depth of his feeling, the
power of his genius; in some of them he reached a greatness
never approached by his predecessors or followers. His
pianoforte sonatas have brought the technical resources of that
instrument to a perfection previously unknown, but they at the
same time embody an infinite variety and depth of emotion.
His nine symphonies show a continuous climax of development,
ascending from the simplest forms of Haydn and Mozart to the
colossal dimensions of the choral symphony, which almost
seems to pass the possibilities of artistic expansion, and
the subject of which is humanity itself with its sufferings
and ideals. His dramatic works, the opera _Fidelio_, and the
overtures to _Egmont_ and _Coriolanus_--display depth of pathos
and force of dramatic characterisation. Even his smallest songs
and pianoforte pieces reflect a heart full of love, and a mind
bent on thought of eternal things (_Ency. Brit._, 9th edition).
Six years after the death of Mozart, but while Haydn and Beethoven
were still living, the former a man of sixty-five and the latter
twenty-seven (the year when first the shadow that was to eclipse his
life fell over him), there was born in Vienna a little lad called
Franz Peter Schubert, son of a master at Leopoldstadt. His beautiful
voice and perfect ear soon procured him a place among the choristers
in the Imperial chapel. No one seems to have taught him composition,
but his genius was of the kind that will out, and as other lads with
the fervour of the writer in their blood spoil ink and paper from an
absurdly early age, so young Franz spent all his spare time composing.
When he was eighteen he composed in one year two symphonies, five
operas, and one hundred and thirty-seven songs, besides many other
things of less importance! He was at this time helping to teach in
the same school as his father and all this was done in his unoccupied
moments. Wishing to devote himself still more to the art which absorbed
him, he applied for a position as teacher in a Government music school,
but was told he was “imperfectly qualified!”
The Esterhazy family, who had done so much for music already, accepted
him as teacher for one of the daughters of the house. The post was
poorly paid and, like Mozart, Schubert suffered from poverty all his
life. His industry was amazing; he literally poured out compositions,
one of his best-known songs, “Hark! Hark! the Lark,” being written
on the back of a bill of fare in a beer-garden! His symphonies never
received recognition in his lifetime, and he never enjoyed that
applause which fell to the lot of Beethoven. His lack of early training
in the technique of music told heavily on him, for the prodigality of
his genius had no adequate base to rest on. He died very young, being
barely thirty-two, and he is buried close to Beethoven.
That Austria should have produced three such marvellous geniuses, all
practically at the same time, and been a foster-mother to a fourth,
greater than any, is a surprising record, which will probably never
be eclipsed in the annals of history. Many other musical children she
has had, but all stand below these great masters. Among them, Johann
Strauss, born in 1804, and so a member of the same galaxy, has already
been noted. It is impossible to describe exhaustively all of Austria’s
musicians who have enriched the world of men with their melodies and
their marvellous execution. She stands in the forefront of musical
countries, and none will grudge her the position.
CHAPTER IX
VIENNA TO BUDAPEST
Following the course of the river onward, there is not much to remark
on after leaving Vienna until we reach the boundary of Hungary. The
first Hungarian town is Dévény, otherwise known as Theben, and at the
mouth of the river March the spurs of the North-West Carpathians can be
seen.
[Illustration: THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT AND MARGIT BRIDGE, BUDAPEST]
It is tiring to repeat the same things about castle after castle,
but the situations chosen for these ancient relics are, in almost
all cases, so remarkably fine that it is impossible to pass them by
without comment. Even among such a profusion of rocky heights crowned
with keeps that at Dévény stands out as something exceptional. The
marvel is how the workmen, with no steam to help them, contrived to
get the mighty stones planted so enduringly on the great boss of rock,
which falls precipitously to the water below. Even in its extreme ruin
Dévény is strong, and strong it had need to be as a border fortress
always in the thick of a continuous struggle between two nations.
It withstood the Turks, but was ruined by the French in 1809. The most
conspicuous object about it now is the Millenary column, planted there
to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarian Kingdom. These
columns have been scattered broadcast over Hungary and are met with at
every turn.
Next is reached Pressburg, the Pozsony of the Hungarians and at one
time their capital.
The first impression of Pressburg is dominated by the square fortress
on the top of the hill and the spire of the cathedral. The fortress
is in ruins, but the cathedral has been restored. Part of its tower,
however, is said to date from the time of the Romans, and some of the
building of the thirteenth century survives. There are one or two
splendid private dwellings, such as those of the Archduke Frederick and
Count Esterhazy, while the fine tower of the town-hall stands so high
that it dwarfs the houses near. In the cathedral the kings of the House
of Hapsburg from Ferdinand I. to V. were crowned. It is a fine town
with exceptionally fine environs, and those who have time would do well
to visit it. One of the new universities founded in Hungary in 1912 is
at Pressburg and the other at Debreczen.
It was at Pressburg the touching scene took place when the young
Queen Maria Teresa appeared with her baby boy in her arms to appeal
to the various orders of the State for their support against those
neighbouring sovereigns who wished to tear it from her.
In the new constitution of 1848 the coronation place of the kings was
removed to Budapest with the Houses of Parliament, and henceforth this
city became the capital.
The splendid equestrian statue of Maria Teresa at Pressburg is most
fittingly placed near the old Coronation Hill.
Not far below Pressburg the Danube is split by a long island called
Schütt or Csallókoz, sixty miles long by thirty broad, with about a
hundred villages on it. It is very fertile, and has a great future in
agriculture. At the village of Csúny another arm of the Danube branches
off.
When we come to Komárom (Komorn), the first stream rejoins the main
river, and the current is difficult and unruly, continually changing
its bed. It will be remembered that Maurus Jókai, the great Hungarian
novelist, was born at Komorn. The town is partly hidden from view by
Elizabeth Island, but its neighbour, Ujszöny, on the right bank, now
united to it by a long iron bridge, is well seen. Here the other branch
of the Danube, reinforced by the Vág, comes in again.
Before reaching Esztergom or Gran the scenery is rather flat, but
thence it becomes fine, as the river once more winds round among
hills, past several interesting places, one of which is Viségrad
crowned by the ruins of the ancient castle, and on by another of the
numerous islands to Vácz (Waitzen). Before Vácz it makes a curious
right-angled turn, flowing due south to Budapest. Old Buda is the part
of the town first reached, and we see the shipbuilding yards of the
Steam Navigation Company, and also Margaret Island, with its beautiful
grounds, before landing at the wharf.
Budapest is one of the most wonderful cities in Europe, and the third
in point of size, ranking after London and Vienna. It is formed from
the combination of three towns, O-Buda, Buda, and Pest, which were
united under the present name in 1873. The first of these is the oldest.
Its magnificent situation on the Danube gives it a majesty which
could be attained in no other way. The best approach is by steamer,
when outlined against the sky the Castle Hill, Mt. Gellért, and the
Royal Palace on the heights can be seen on one side and the domes and
pinnacles of the Houses of Parliament, the gables and roofs of all the
remaining fine buildings on the other. If the first view of it is in
the evening, then the whole city seems alive with points of fire, and
jewels and diadems of lights are flung along the Esplanade and the
outlines of the principal streets.
The river varies greatly in breadth, being 700 yards wide a little
above the town and less than half that distance opposite Mt. Gellért.
It is now spanned by five bridges. The oldest of these is the chain
bridge, built in 1849 by Count Stephen Széchenyi, one of the national
heroes, to replace an ancient bridge of boats. The others include the
Francis Joseph and the Elizabeth Bridges, named out of compliment to
the present ruler and his late consort. The highest point on the Buda
side is St. John’s Mount, about 1300 feet, but most noticeable are the
bare and craggy outlines of Mt. Gellért, rather more than half as high.
There are innumerable ferry-boats, steamers, and barges of all kinds
on the water, which presents a lively scene. On the Buda side are the
oldest remains and the quaintest street vistas. Here is the Church
of St. Matthias, which, though so much restored as to be practically
rebuilt, dates from the thirteenth century. It is here the kings of
Hungary are crowned.
In Buda also is the Royal Palace, used far too seldom by the king,
according to Hungarian ideas, for the people would rejoice to have
their sovereign among them more frequently. There is nothing old about
it, for it was ruthlessly razed to the ground during the Turkish
occupation. The Throne Room, St. Stephen’s Room, the Hapsburg Room,
and the Chapel Royal are all worth seeing. In the last is the embalmed
hand of St. Stephen, one of the nation’s greatest treasures. It must
be remembered that the State religion is Roman Catholic; the reigning
monarch must adhere to that faith, and the people in the capital of
Hungary are almost overwhelmingly of the same creed. The coronation
insignia, strongly guarded, are also in the Royal Palace. There are
several very fine groups of sculpture in the vicinity of the building.
What will interest visitors most, however, are the splendid hanging
gardens overlooking the river.
Buda stands on the site of the Roman settlement which was the capital
of the province of Lower Pannonia. At O-Buda, on the same side, which,
by the way, is the right bank of the river, are found Roman remains,
including a Roman amphitheatre, aqueduct, baths, and dwelling-houses,
and excavation is still going on. In O-Buda there are numbers of
one-story houses, built irregularly, and at certain places it is
possible to get quaint peeps. One might linger long here before passing
over to the more modern side.
In great contrast is the town of Pest, which, though in its origin
almost as old as Buda, has nothing left to carry back its date. It is
in all ways a large and splendid town, with wide streets enlivened
by beautiful sculpture, fountains, and trees; it has magnificent
buildings, and the streets show splendid vistas, especially where they
lead down to the bridges. Everywhere run electric trams, and there
are electric railways underground. The principal street is that of
Andrassy, a name honoured in Hungary’s political life. Here is the
National Opera House, subsidised, as are also the theatres. The public
buildings will bear comparison with the most up-to-date of modern
cities. Among them is the National Academy of Science, founded by the
same Count Stephen Széchenyi who is mentioned above. His statue stands
in front. The building is designed to encourage science and literature.
There is in it a room devoted to Goethe. Another most interesting
building is the Museum of Fine Arts at the entrance to the Town Park.
Here specimens of architecture and sculpture are found, as well as
paintings. One of the best known of present-day artists outside his own
country is Philip Laszlo, lately ennobled as De Lombos, a rare honour
for the exclusive Austrian ruler to give to one who has made his name
by work!
A museum, quite peculiar to Hungary, and very appropriate, as many of
her sons live by agriculture, is the Agricultural Museum. This stands
by a lake in the Town Park and is built in imitation of a Transylvanian
fortress of the Middle Ages.
We have not yet mentioned the Academy of Music, a very important place
to such a music-loving people. It was opened in 1875, and the first
director was Franz Liszt.
Liszt was born in 1811 at Raiding in Hungary. His father was a steward
of the Esterhazy estates and had himself considerable musical talent.
Young Liszt played in public at the age of nine, and attracted so much
attention that his musical education in Vienna was paid for by patrons.
He soon visited France and England and Switzerland, and everywhere his
playing was well received. When he was only sixteen his father died.
It was the young man’s great admiration for the violinist Paganini
which fired him with the ambition to do for the piano what Paganini had
done for the violin. At the age of twenty-four he formed a connection
with Mme la Comtesse d’Agoult, friend of George Sand, and herself a
literary woman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern. Of the
three children resulting from this association, one became the wife of
Von Bülow and afterwards married Richard Wagner.
Liszt is equally well known as a performer, conductor, and composer,
but in the latter rôle he takes a lower place than the Austrian
musicians of the Mighty Quartette. As will be seen by comparison of
dates, he was contemporary with Beethoven and Schubert. Liszt died in
1886, leaving behind him an immense mass of work, songs, cantatas,
oratorios, pianoforte pieces, etc., which are of unequal merit.
The Opera House at Budapest has been mentioned. There are also the
concerts of the Philharmonic Society every second week from November to
March.
There are numbers of theatres, besides the National one, and the
collective life of the people is gay and bright.
The town is particularly rich in libraries, chief among them is that in
the Hungarian National Museum, already mentioned. This contains over
a million and a quarter volumes, and among them many Corvin codexes
from the library of King Matthias Corvinus, which was rifled by the
Turks and the contents carried away to Constantinople. It is to the
credit of Turkey that a good many have been restored as a graceful act
of courtesy to the nation from time to time. The University library, a
splendid building in Franciscan Square, owns 300,000 volumes, and the
library of the Academy of Sciences, 200,000.
The University has departments for theology, law, political science,
medicine, and philosophy.
On the Embankment, which forms a favourite promenade, is a statue of
Petöfi, the Hungarian poet best known to the world at large.
Everywhere in Hungary excellent groups and figures of statuary are to
be met with, many of them full of spirit and life, and none so bad as
many constantly found in England.
The Houses of Parliament include the two chambers and each is in
horseshoe shape.
Budapest is very much up to date in every way. There are the three
large termini of the main railways, the eastern, western, and southern,
besides smaller stations. There is also a “Strangers’ Enquiry Office
and Travel Bureau,” which is an invaluable help to any one entering
the country for the first time, comparing with the offices of the
celebrated Messrs. Cook elsewhere. The most original feature of the
town is a talking newspaper, which distributes news by means of the
telephone verbally!
Among pleasure-grounds, the Town Park, which is well kept and beautiful
with flower-beds, smooth green lawns, and plenty of trees, is a
favourite resort, but in spite of its “zoo” it is rivalled by Margaret
Island, already mentioned, lying about two miles up the river. The
island is now connected by an outstretched arm with Margaret Bridge,
itself crossed by electric trams, so that it is very accessible. It is
traversed by a horse-tram, and has on it hotels, restaurants, baths,
and every kind of attraction. Birches and willows grow freely, and in
summer the flowers are really beautiful. It was formerly Crown property
and belonged for a long time to the late Archduke Joseph, but since
1908 it has been taken over by the city. The baths on the island are
extensive and well built, and are naturally warm. Indeed, Budapest
is pre-eminent among cities in the number and variety of her healing
springs; those on the Buda side were known to the Romans and much
appreciated by the Turks, by whom the two finest, the Imperial and the
Rudas, were built. Besides sulphur and hot baths, there are bitter
salt baths and, on the Pest side, artesian baths. The water in some of
these is of too high a temperature to be used in a natural state and
must be cooled. In summer temporary sheds and rafts appear all along
the river-side, and the water-loving population resorts to wholesale
swimming and bathing. Besides the baths, the healing waters of
Budapest are renowned all over the world, chief among them the Hunyadi
Janos, so named after one of the greatest Hungarians--a rather doubtful
compliment!
The river, which is such an asset to the city in its milder moods,
shows sometimes another side. The ice, which accumulates in the winter,
is often the cause of much damage, for when it breaks up it comes
down in huge blocks, which grind and crash against the piers of the
bridges and do an infinity of mischief. Not less terrible are the
floods, which in the past have caused inundations, the most fearful
of which spelt ruin to the city of Pest. In March of 1838 the river,
which was frozen solid to three feet in thickness, began to groan and
crack and heave, so that a dyke was thrown up to guard against it.
Count Stephen Széchenyi, who was alive at that time, built a barge
or sort of little ark, for which he suffered much ridicule. However,
during the thirteenth day every citizen was at work strengthening and
piling up the dyke, until, at eight in the evening, the river broke
forth and, carrying masses of ice on its surface, beat down the dyke
and overwhelmed the crowd. The crashing of the ice, the screams of
the women and children, the rush of the waters, made up an appalling
orchestra, more especially as the whole scene was plunged in darkness.
It was a time of horror as awful as the judgment day to those concerned
in it! The whole of the next day the river continued to rise,
carrying away on its broad flood hundreds of drowned human beings.
Those who survived had fled to the highest ground, and as the water
reached the foundations of the streets and sapped them, they saw whole
rows of buildings totter and reel and fall. The heavy barges and other
things carried along by the water dashed into the streets and smashed
up what remained standing. There was nothing to eat and many of the
miserable wretches were thinly clad and in extreme cold; the fifteenth
day was the worst of all, for many died of hunger and exposure, and
corpses lay about on what remained of the land as well as floating on
the water. The city had literally crumbled to pieces! Those who were in
Buda were better off, for they had the hills to climb up, and the flood
did not reach them to the same extent; but to convey help across that
raging torrent was not a task to be lightly attempted. Count Széchenyi
was among the foremost to help others with his ark, and another hero
was Baron Nicholas Wesselenyi, who performed prodigies of valour.
Those who visit Pest must go to see the bas-relief on the wall of the
Franciscan Church commemorating this disastrous epoch. The city rose
again on the ruins of its former self, and to-day numbers four or five
times as large as it was then.
[Illustration: COTTAGES IN THE ALFÖLD]
CHAPTER X
THE DANUBE BELOW BUDAPEST
Almost directly after leaving the city to continue the voyage
southward, we find ourselves close to the island of Csepel, very like
others passed above, only more so! The Danube seems to have a peculiar
facility in dividing itself into two branches, which run almost
parallel and rejoin after a longer or shorter course. The islands thus
formed are celebrated for the fertility of their alluvial soil and are
eagerly taken up by peasant agriculturists.
Csepel is a strip of 38 miles or so with an average breadth of 3
miles, on each side of which the arms of the divided river run almost
straight. There are at least a dozen villages planted along the island
and some 20,000 inhabitants live there.
Apart from this curious feature of the landscape, any one who has come
down from the higher reaches of the Danube may feel disappointed at the
scenery; he has had his fill of variety and grandeur, of precipitous
rocks and sudden turns, and he finds himself instead in the midst
of flat land bounded only on the far horizon by hills. The great
stillness, the monotony, the evidences of the simple agricultural life
of the dwellers in the plain, all contrast with the rush of rapids,
the endless change of scene and the suggestions of war and brigandage
presented by the stern ruins of the keeps perched defiantly on their
high bosses. Nevertheless, in the plain is to be found the true
Hungarian life and glimpses of the peasantry. The Hungarian is not a
mountain-man like the Transylvanian or Tyrolese. In the long-gone ages
it was the boundless plain which tempted his forefathers to settle
here, and at the present time it is the boundless plain which holds his
heart in captivity.
The great soda lakes lying flat like mirages are deserted by birds in
the winter but become the resting-place of numerous flights of geese
in spring and autumn. The little villages are half-buried in vineyards
and show only the steeple of a church or the white walls of the tiny
houses. Great water-mills float placidly everywhere, even though their
numbers have been reduced by the adoption of steam. The vast reaches of
cultivated land looking rich in the sunlight are varied by the flocks
of sheep being watered at a primitive trough and well; just so did
Jacob water the flocks when he met Rachel. The immediate banks of the
river are mostly sand-hills and reeds, fringed by straggling willows
which give scanty shade, and the bed of the stream, ever varying in
depth, needs careful navigation.
Kalocsa is the seat of an archbishop, and contains a famous college and
an astronomical institute in which observations of value and importance
to the whole world have been made. A branch line joins this town with
Kiskaros, the birthplace of Alexander Petöfi.
Then we come to Mohács, ever memorable as the scene of the disastrous
battle when the Turks so completely overwhelmed the Hungarians that the
nation was ground beneath the heel of the conqueror for generations.
This was in 1526, and out of 30,000 Hungarians only 6000, it is said,
were left alive.
[Illustration: WASTE LANDS NEAR KALOCSA]
Shortly after we come to the Francis Canal, connecting the Danube with
the Tisza, Hungary’s second river. It was opened in 1802 but became
choked and useless. By the energy of Zürr Stephen, who enlarged it and
cut two new canals connected with it, it was once more turned into a
useful waterway. When joined by the Drave, the river gains in size
and importance, but it is not until we pass into the spurs of the
Carpathians that the scenery once again grows grander, and after seven
or eight miles we find a steam ferry where a whole train is carried
bodily across the Danube. Ruined forts and towering crags now spring
up once more, and on a lump or rock 200 feet high is the fortress of
Peterwardein, with the little town at the foot; this was called after
Peter the Hermit, whose birthplace it is supposed to be. Not far
off the little town of Karlovicz nestles among its vineyards; it is
renowned for its vermouth.
Where the Theiss or Tisza flows into the larger river the larger
plains on each side are broad and level. This is a well-loved river
and carries with it the hearts of the Hungarians, more even than the
Danube, which has such a cosmopolitan character. The Tisza belongs to
Hungary, from source to outlet, and traverses the great plain which
so embodies the Hungarian’s ideas of his country. It runs across such
flat ground that the fall is very small, consequently the windings are
absurdly exaggerated, and the river has the appearance of a twisted bit
of ribbon falling in heaps.
With the junction of the Save on the right bank the Danube forms
the southern boundary of Hungary itself, separating it from Servia,
whose capital, Belgrade, is just at this corner, which appears a most
dangerous situation for a capital. After this the navigation gets more
difficult, and many fortified places on the hills which have played a
share in the relentless wars against the Turks stand up conspicuously
on their isolated promontories. There is endless diversity of scenery,
endless variation in the swiftness of the current as the bed of the
river widens or contracts.
The river Temes flows into the Danube which, once more bifurcating,
forms another island nearly 4 miles in length. The Kubin then joins
it from Servia, and from Bazias the Lower Danube begins. The island
of Moldava, 3 miles long, lies in the midst of an area of shifting
sand-banks. At the far end the Danube is over 2000 yards broad,
contracting with startling suddenness to a quarter of that width. At
the end of this wedge is the pinnacle-like rock of Babakhai, standing
out in midstream near two islands. It has an interesting legend
connected with it.
The next place of interest is the castle of Kolumbacz.
The scenery presents characteristics of wild solitary grandeur,
beetling cliffs, shooting up into the sky, the exclusive
domain of eagles and other birds of prey; vast interminable
forests that climb the highest mountains and descend into the
deepest gorge; cataracts roaring and leaping from rock to rock;
majestic trees, with the soil washed from under them, and ready
to be hurled by the next blast into the river; others, stript
of their bark, white and mutilated, dashing along with the
current.
This fine description is still as true as when it was written many
years ago.
The Kolumbacz fly, a peculiarly virulent kind of mosquito, is known and
dreaded far and wide. Tradition says that in a cave in these rocks St.
George slew the dragon and that the swarms originated in its putrefying
carcase, an explanation which does not incline one to endure the
torments meekly.
Finest of all the defiles through which we go is the Kazan Pass, where
the river-bed narrows to 400 feet, and the towering cliffs rise to
a height of 2000 feet, and fall so sheer to the water that without
artificial means not even a goat could pass along their base. But no
less than two roads can be seen, one on each side; one is clear and
well-kept, the other fallen to ruin. The first was that made by the
Romans in the time of Trajan, and wonderfully they did their work. In
the absence of gunpowder, they made a way by fixing great baulks of
timber, cut from the primeval forests of oak which clothed the cliffs,
into niches or sockets cut in the living rock. These they further
supported by hewing out a terrace or platform for part of their length,
and then by filling in the projecting part with other timber; thus
they formed a kind of hanging gallery broad enough for men to march
along. Part of the rock was smoothed and an inscription recording the
date of the work was made, but wind and weather have done their part,
and it became almost indecipherable. Stimulated by this fine example,
Count Széchenyi followed it in the nineteenth century, and made a road
all along the river, which will endure for all time, because, having
the use of gunpowder, the solid rock was blasted to make it. At the
entrance to the Pass a smooth tablet cut in the rock records his work.
At Orsova Servia and Hungary, which have marched with the Danube, meet
Roumania, so that the famous “Iron Gates” are the concern of all three
rulers equally.
The term Iron Gate leads one instinctively to expect a defile as stern
as that of Kazan or many another further upstream; as a matter of fact,
the term gate is more appropriate than it would be to a mere defile,
which, however narrow, would be open. The gate consisted of ridges of
rock in the river-bed, forming quite as great an impediment to river
traffic as any iron barrier reared vertically. These rocks have been
removed by blasting and now, though the channel requires navigation, it
is quite practicable at any state of the water. The “Gate” was declared
open by the rulers of the three countries which meet at this point in
1896, though the work had been completed by Hungary alone. The length
of the rapids is 1700 yards more or less, and the drop is considerable.
This is the end of our special subject in this direction, though a
continuation of the trip to the Black Sea may be recommended.
CHAPTER XI
BOHEMIA AND OTHER LANDS
There is a kingdom in the Austrian Empire which arose at one time to
such a height of power that it might well have been the one eventually
to overshadow the others and assume, as Prussia did, the leading
position in the German confederation. This is Bohemia, at first a
duchy, which became a kingdom about the thirteenth century. At one time
its king had so extended his dominions by purchase and conquest that
they included almost all the Empire of Austria as at present known, the
kingdom of Poland, and more besides, and reached from the Adriatic to
the Baltic Sea.
It is well known that Shakespeare in _The Winter’s Tale_ gives Bohemia
a sea-coast, a thing which at the present time, when many countries
intervene between Bohemia and the sea, seems absurd. There is, however,
no real absurdity in it. The date of the play is not fixed, and the
traditions of Bohemia’s ancient dominions existed long in the minds
of those who had known them. It is true that even in the “long ago”
the sea-coast can hardly be described as Bohemia itself, but it was
under the rule of the king, and therefore the “absurdity” at all events
disappears.
The word “Bohemian,” which has become so deeply rooted in our language
as a synonym for those who despise convention and live careless
artistic lives, has nothing to do with the real Bohemians, who,
artistic as they undoubtedly are, especially in the direction of music,
cannot be described as unconventional in any unusual way. It arises
from the fact that certain wandering gipsies were supposed to have
come from Bohemia in the Middle Ages, whether with truth or not seems
unascertainable, and “Bohemian” was thenceforth used as a synonym for
gipsy.
There is another point which tends to make Bohemia known even to those
who have no taste for European geography, and to whom the middle of
Europe is for the most part only a confused welter of nationalities,
usually German-speaking, and at any rate quite uninteresting. This is
the fact that the motto of the English Prince of Wales, “Ich dien,”
with its proud humility, and the crest of three feathers were taken
from those of the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle
of Crécy in 1346 while fighting for his ally, King Philip of Valois.
The Black Prince, his conqueror, adopted as his own the crest and
motto, which have been held by successive Princes of Wales ever since.
This compact little land of Bohemia, lying surrounded on three sides by
mountains, now forms the north-western corner of the Austrian Empire.
It contains much beautiful scenery and is more varied than many other
parts of the Empire, being hilly and level, wooded and cultivated in
different places, so that every kind of landscape is met with. Bohemia
has always had a struggle to preserve its national unity, for it was
surrounded on the one side by the German-speaking peoples of Bavaria
and Saxony and on the other by the Magyars of Hungary, and it had to
sway into alliance with one or the other accordingly as the opposite
one attacked it. Moravia has always been closely associated with it,
and Poland and Hungary have frequently in the course of history been
ruled by the same king.
Many times before the ruler of Bohemia adopted the title of king had
it been offered to him by the Emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” Once
this was in the reign of Ottakar II. one of the best remembered and
most loved of the rulers of Bohemia. He was of the Premsyl dynasty and
succeeded to the throne in 1253.
The ancient tradition of the origin of this dynasty, which gave a
long line of rulers to Bohemia, beginning before authentic history
and continuing to 1306, is too picturesque to pass over. One of the
semi-mythical rulers of Bohemia, Krok, is said to have left no sons
but only three daughters, the youngest of whom, Libussa, a woman of
intrepid spirit and masculine force, succeeded him. However, in spite
of her fine qualities, her subjects disliked being ruled by a woman and
some of them questioned her judgments. At length, to satisfy them, she
agreed to select a husband, and standing in the midst of her nobles she
pointed to the hills and told them to go to such and such a place where
they would find a man ploughing with two oxen; him they must bring and
him only would she marry. His name was Premsyl. The peasant was found
as described, and readily took up the rôle allotted to him, becoming
the husband of Libussa, ruler of Bohemia, and founder of the greatest
dynasty in his country’s annals.
Ottakar, his descendant, brought the fame of Bohemia to its highest
pitch, for he possessed himself of the dukedom of Austria, and became
lord of all the territories now included in the Austrian Empire on the
western side, with the exception of the Tyrol. Mr. James Bryce, in his
_Holy Roman Empire_, speaks of him as “the rampart of Christianity, a
lion in bravery, an eagle in goodness.”
Ottakar was offered the dignity of Emperor when it became vacant, but
refused, and Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose domains lay in Switzerland,
and who until that time had been comparatively unknown, was chosen
instead. Curiously enough this man was to found a dynasty ruling not
only over all the lands held by Ottakar, but also over Hungary, which
had not even acknowledged his lordship. It seems almost as if Ottakar
must have had some intuitive dread of this new candidate for the high
honour, for he protested violently against his election, basing his
protest on the ground that he himself, though an elector, had not cast
his vote. He appealed to the Pope, but was overruled on the ground that
even had he cast it he would have been in a minority. His fears were
quickly justified, for Rudolph was no sooner in firm possession of
the Imperial dignity than he attacked Ottakar, claiming that Austria,
Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia should be restored to the German
Empire, of which they had formerly been a part. When his claims were
refused he made war on Ottakar, and quickly got the best of it, using
the forces of the German confederation to enforce his claim. Ottakar
was compelled to yield up his latest acquired provinces on condition
of being allowed to keep his older dominions of Bohemia and Moravia,
and Rudolph made the Austrian lands hereditary in his own family, even
though they had been won at German expense.
Rudolph had a numerous family of daughters, and he was accustomed to
cement peace or buy over a foe by offering one of them in marriage
as a prize. As Ottakar had already been married more than once, his
present wife being a daughter of the King of Hungary, it was on behalf
of his son, then a child, that the bribe was offered. It seemed for
a while as if peace might be secured, but not so; there was between
the two men a deadly and ineradicable antipathy, and it was not long
before the smouldering flame burst out again. With the fire of despair
Ottakar collected his troops and flung himself into a contest with the
conqueror and was slain at the battle of Marchfeld.
Rudolph did not act vindictively; he arranged that the dead king’s
son should succeed to the Bohemian throne, ruling in subordination to
himself as overlord, and that when he was old enough he should still
marry the promised bride. But Queen Kunegunda, his mother, restless
under this submission, called in help from outside in the person of
Otto of Brandenburg, who promptly repaid her by grinding Bohemia into
misery and carrying away her and her son as prisoners. The Queen,
however, managed to escape, and the young King Wenceslaus was at length
ransomed, and returned to Bohemia in 1285 as a boy of twelve to begin
his reign. Two years later he married Rudolph’s daughter.
King Wenceslaus became King also of Poland and eventually, when the
male line of the Hungarian kings died out, he was offered the crown of
Hungary as well. He accepted it for his son, who succeeded him, but who
turned out to be a weak and dissolute man, and with his death ended
the male line of the house of Premsyl.
[Illustration: PRAGUE: THE HRADSCHIN, FROM WALLENSTEINSTRASSE]
Various experiments in rulers followed, more or less unsatisfactory,
including John of Luxembourg, who became blind, and was killed at
Crécy, as mentioned above. His son Charles held the dignity of Emperor
(as Charles IV.), as well as that of King of Bohemia. Charles founded
the first German university, that of Prague, and was the originator
of the Golden Bull, a charter which settled--so far as it could be
settled--the difficult question of the right of election to the
position of emperor. He was succeeded in turn by his two sons. In the
reign of the second, named Sigismund, arose the celebrated reformer
John Huss, or Hus, a Bohemian, whose fame is second only to that of
Wyclif in England. He was born in 1369 at the village of Huss, from
which, as was common in those days, he derived the surname which
distinguished him from other Johns.
The people of Bohemia are the Czechs, the most important branch of the
Slav race, and they have a burning sense of their national dignity,
which seems to be centred more in the preservation of their language
than in anything else. Up to the Middle Ages Latin had everywhere
been the language of communication in Bohemia for all official and
religious purposes, as it had in Austria and Hungary, but when John
Huss came into prominence it was chiefly because he fanned the flame
of nationalism, and was the first to bring out in Czech books and
pamphlets stirring up patriotism and appealing everywhere to the strong
sense of nationality in the people. Consequently he was adored by them.
He was a disciple and follower of Wyclif, who was a little senior to
him. Mr. Geoffrey Drage, in his interesting book _Austria-Hungary_,
thus sums him up:
The Wyclif of Bohemia, like his English forerunner, embodied
all that was required to satisfy the moral needs of the time.
A priest, he preached the reform of the Church; a scholar,
he popularized the Divine Word in the common language; a
patriot, he tried to rescue the Bohemian nationality from the
intellectual oppression of the German minority.
Huss denounced the abuses then to be found in the Church strenuously
and at all times. Papal wrath was aroused against him. He was summoned
to the Council of Constance, and went under a safe-conduct, but was
imprisoned and, after some time, burnt to death on July 6, 1415, his
birthday, a fate which fell also on his fellow-citizen and follower,
Jerome of Prague. The end of these two earnest men aroused a storm of
wrath in their native country and the doctrines of the Reformation
swept over the land. Civil war followed, and continued until the
demands of the Hussites were granted. The great leader of the Hussites
was Zizka, who showed admirable judgment and courage. His name is held
in little less reverence than those of Huss and Jerome themselves.
Though the kings of Bohemia were nominally elective, yet as a rule the
crown descended from father to son as smoothly as in countries where
the dignity was hereditary. That is to say, when there was a son to
succeed, but it very frequently happened that, as in the case of other
titles when heirs are earnestly desired, heirs very often failed to
put in an appearance. As Sigismund had no sons, he managed to secure
the succession of the throne to Albert, Archduke of Austria, who had
married his daughter. Albert, however, reigned a very short time. A
posthumous son was born to him, and after considerable debate, he was
crowned king at the age of fourteen, only to die unmarried five years
later, as a result of the terrible plague which acted as such a scourge
in the Middle Ages.
The Bohemians were therefore once more in the unenviable position of
having to choose a king, and the influence which the Reformed doctrines
had by this time gained is shown in the choice of the first “heretic”
king, a national leader called George of Podebrad. After Podebrad’s
death thirteen years later, there was great rivalry for the vacant
place, numberless claimants starting up in the persons of the rulers of
the small kingdoms adjoining Bohemia, but at length the son of the King
of Poland was selected, as there was a very close community of interest
between Poland and Bohemia. He eventually became King of Hungary also,
and was succeeded in all three kingdoms by his son Louis.
Louis was the unfortunate monarch who perished in the debacle at the
battle of Mohács in Hungary, when the Turks swept in like a tidal
wave and submerged the unhappy country for generations. So fearful an
impression did this disaster make upon the minds of the Hungarians
that even to this day, when a man loses house or land or parents or
children, it is a saying, “More was lost on Mohács field.”
On the death of Louis the same strenuous competition for the vacant
throne was aroused as before his father’s accession, and this time
the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the reigning Emperor, Charles of
Austria, was chosen. Ferdinand became also King of Hungary and Archduke
of Austria, thus uniting in the person of a common ruler three kingdoms
inhabited by different nationalities. This settled the matter as to the
succession for a while, for the throne passed from Ferdinand’s son to
his grandson Rudolph. Rudolph was eventually deposed in favour of his
brother Matthias. During all this time the ceaseless warfare between
the Roman dominion and the Reformed doctrines went on, and the rival
parties were ever striving to gain power and to swing the balance over
to their side. The country was restless, families were divided against
themselves, and no one felt safe.
It was during the reign of Matthias that the curious incident about
throwing the councillors out of the window of the council-chamber took
place, a scene unequalled in any other assembly in any age.
The soreness between Protestants and Catholics had reached a head in
regard to the succession to the throne, for King Matthias was another
of the many childless monarchs. The Catholic councillors had therefore
arranged that he should be succeeded by Archduke Ferdinand of Styria,
a determined persecutor of the Protestants. The Protestants took
immediate action in protesting, but were checkmated by a royal message
prohibiting the meeting of their “Estates” or council. Their leader
was Count Thurn, who had been Burgrave of the Karlstyn, but had been
superseded by a Catholic called Martinic. The Estates usually met
in the Hradcany Palace at Prague, but when they issued a manifesto
attacking the royal councillors they were forbidden to meet there
any more. Accordingly they met elsewhere secretly. Count Lutzow, in
his charming little book _The Story of Prague_, thus describes what
followed:
Besides Thurn, a few other leaders, Colonna of Fels, Budova,
Ruppa, two nobles of the Kinsky, and two of the Rican family
were present. Ulrich of Kinsky proposed that the royal
Councillors should be poniarded in the Council chamber [where
they were to meet next day], but Thurn’s suggestion that they
should be thrown from the windows of the Hradcany Palace
prevailed. This was in Bohemia the traditional death-penalty
for traitors. As the Estates afterwards quaintly stated, “They
followed the example of that which was done to Jezebel, the
tormentor of the Israelite people and also that of the Romans
and other famed nations, who were in the habit of throwing from
rocks and other elevated places those who disturbed the peace
of the commonwealth.”
Early on the morning of the memorable 23rd of May the
representatives of Protestantism in Bohemia proceeded to the
Hradcany; all of them were in full armour and most of them
were followed by one or more retainers. They first proceeded
to the hall where the Estates usually met. The address to the
king which the defenders had prepared was here read to them.
All then entered the hall of the royal Councillors, where
a very stormy discussion arose. Count Slik, Thurn, Kinsky,
and others violently accused Martinic and Slavata, the two
principal Councillors, of being traitors. Slik particularly
accused Martinic of having deprived “that noble Bohemian hero,
Count Thurn,” of his office of Burgrave of the Karlstyn. He
added that “as long as old men, honest and wise, had governed
Bohemia, the country had prospered, but since they (Martinic
and Slavata), worthless disciples of the Jesuits, had pushed
themselves forward, the ruin of the country had begun.”
What now happened can best be given in the words of the
contemporary historian, Skala Ze Zhore:
“No mercy was granted them, and first the lord of Smecno
(_i.e._ Martinic) was dragged to the window near which the
secretaries generally worked; for Kinsky was quicker, and
had more aid than Count Thurn, who had seized Slavata.
Then they were both thrown, dressed in their cloaks and
with their rapiers and decorations, just as they had been
found in the Councillors’ office, one after the other,
headforemost out of the western window into a moat beneath
the palace, which, by a wall, was separated from the other
deeper moat. They loudly screamed, ‘Ach, ach, Ouve!’ and
attempted to hold on to the window-frame, but were at last
obliged to let go, as they were struck on their hands.
“It remains to add that neither of the nobles, nor
Fabricius their secretary, who was also thrown from the
window, perished, a circumstance that the Catholics
afterwards attributed to a miracle.”
About a year after this incident King Matthias died and was succeeded
by Ferdinand of Styria, who was not recognised by the Protestants. They
chose instead Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married the
daughter of James I. of England. About two months after his coronation
in Prague his wife Elizabeth gave birth to a son called Rupert; he
lived to be known as the dashing Prince Rupert, who played such a
gallant part in the English Civil Wars. He and his brother Maurice both
died without children, and it was through their sister Sophia that
the Hanoverian kings of England came to the British throne after the
unhappy termination of the Stuart line. Sophia’s son was George I. of
England.
The Elector Frederick is known as “the Winter King,” because hardly
had he assumed the crown than the forces of the Austrian Empire met
the Bohemians in a severe battle, called the Battle of the White
Mountain, near Prague, in which the Bohemians were completely routed
and their newly made king was forced to fly. His brief reign therefore
extended only over a few winter months. The battle was followed by
wholesale executions and confiscations among the Protestants; in the
market-place at Prague, on June 21 in the same year, twenty-six leading
Protestants, headed by Count Slik, were executed.
After this, national aspiration was crushed, and the country was
Germanised by its rulers; the House of Hapsburg was in the ascendant
and became the reigning hereditary rulers of Bohemia. It is only since
the settlement of 1867 that there has been a revival, and the Czechs
have once more been warmed into animation in the desire to keep alive
their national tongue within the Empire.
[Illustration: PRAGUE · CARL’S BRIDGE]
Prague is a mediæval town and one of the most interesting existing, in
spite of some very unsatisfactory buildings dating from the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Though it has been again and again the scene
of conflict, there is still enough remaining from the past to afford a
rich feast to the lover of antiquities. The castle of Vysehead, built
of the stones of a still older fortress, stands high above the city,
and is a monumental chapter of history in itself if properly studied.
The town is on the river Moldau, and overlooking this is the Hradcany
Palace of the ancient kings, dating mainly from the fourth century,
but since greatly rebuilt and added to. The fine bridge of Charles
IV., fourteenth century, has a high ornamental tower at one end, a
very leviathan of its kind, rich in decorative effects, though simple
in general style. The Cathedral of St. Vitus is only one of numerous
religious buildings well worth seeing. Many of the houses are quaint
and irregular, but the modernisation of the town, and the inevitable
arrival of trams, has given a certain veneer which sits oddly on the
ancient framework.
Bohemia has produced many musicians, and at the present day the leading
professor Sevcik attracts pupils from all over the world; while
Kubelik, with his melodious violin, was a pupil at the conservatoire
and is the son of a Czech. The best-known Bohemian composer is Dvorak,
and rather less known, but little inferior in merit, is Smetaud.
Many other names might be added. Anton Dvorak was born in 1841 at
Nelahozaves and was the son of an innkeeper, and from the first was
wild to follow music as a career. He went to Prague, and as a mere boy
kept himself by his violin, playing in orchestras. He married, and
as a means of adding to his small earnings took pupils. He was very
energetic, and turned out a multitude of compositions. At the age of
thirty-four he was lucky enough to secure a position which relieved
him from the fear of want, and from thenceforth gave himself up to
producing larger works, symphonies and operas. He visited England
frequently, and for three years lived in America, holding the post of
head of a conservatoire in New York. He died in 1904. His best-known
works are the _Stabat Mater_, Symphony in D, and the opera _Jacobin_.
The political history of Moravia is so bound up with that of Bohemia
that it does not need telling separately. Since 1029 the country has
been incorporated with that of Bohemia and has shared its fortunes.
The people are Slavs, and are generally known as Slovaks or Moravians,
but are really very much like the Czechs. There is also a strong
German element, and the German and Slav electors choose their deputies
separately, voting according to their nationality. The country sends
forty-nine deputies to the Austrian Parliament. The Moravians are very
industrious, and their commerce and manufactures compare favourably
with the rest of the Empire. Linen, cotton, and woollen goods are
manufactured in the capital, Brunn; and beet-sugar, leather, and brandy
are also reckoned in the output. The name is derived from the river
March or Morava, which runs through the country.
The principal idea which has reached the mind of the world at large in
connection with Moravia is the use of the word Moravian to distinguish
the sect of an extreme evangelical type started in the times of Huss,
which has since spread far and wide. The Moravian Church has no formal
creed, but believes in simplicity of life and above all in missionary
effort.
The country is cut off from Hungary by the North-West Carpathians,
which form a high ridge between, and several of the spurs of these
mountains run down into Moravia.
[Illustration: CARINTHIA: MARIA-WÖRTH, ON THE WÖRTHERSEE]
The three duchies, with beautiful poetic names, Carniola, Carinthia,
and Styria, are comparatively unknown to strangers outside the borders
of the Empire. Seamed by ranges of the Alps, cut by torrents, and
clothed in rich forests, they include some of the most glorious parts
of the country, and as they get better known will probably be as
popular with tourists as the Tyrol or Switzerland. The two first-named
average about 4000 square miles each, and the last over twice as much.
In Carinthia the largest proportion of the inhabitants are Germans, and
in Carniola all but 5 per cent are Slavs, known as Slovenes. In both
countries the bulk of the people are of the Roman Catholic religion.
The title Duke of Carinthia first appears in the tenth century and
is to be found in the chronicles of many of the local disturbances
throughout succeeding centuries. The celebrated Margaret Maultasche,
mentioned in the account of the Tyrol, received the province as part
of her patrimony from her father the Duke, but it was taken from her
by the King of Bavaria and handed over to the Austrian princes. On the
death of Ferdinand of Austria in 1564 his third son, Charles, became
Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. When Buonaparte created the
province of Illyria, these three countries were incorporated in it.
Carinthia is cut in two by the river Drave. Its capital is Klagenfurt.
Carniola, which has always been closely connected with it, is
traversed by the river Save. Its capital is Laibach.
The Slovenes of Carniola are very near akin to the Croatians, and the
two languages are sufficiently alike for the people to understand one
another without much difficulty. In uniting these provinces as Illyria,
Buonaparte aroused national aspirations which still linger.
Carniola is desperately anxious to preserve alive her nationality and
to cultivate her own tongue. The writer in the tenth edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_ says:
German influence in the province is now very slight and is
still declining. Energetic efforts are being made to cultivate
literature, science and the drama in the Slovene language. The
Dramatic Association has brought out over a hundred original
and translated pieces, many of which have been produced in the
subsidized Slovene theatre at Laibach. The national Literary
Association, which numbers over 46,000 members, distributes a
quarter of a million volumes annually, while its encouragement
promotes and maintains a national periodical press, which calls
forth a succession of talented young writers. The anti-German
and anti-Italian feeling is very strong, and has found
expression in violent demonstrations of fraternity with the
Czechs, and in an abortive effort to make the Russian language
a subject of instruction in the public school, preliminary
to elevating it to the rank of the Panslavist medium of
intercommunication.
In both these provinces the mountains are honey-combed by caves,
grottoes, and subterranean passages. The grottoes of Adelsburg are
among the most remarkable in the world. The Terglou peak in Carniola
rises to a height of 10,000 feet. The celebrated Tauern line, already
mentioned as being one of the most recent of the State enterprises,
runs through both countries. It leaves the main east and west line at
Schwarzach. Its construction was the result of the law of 1901, which
secured to the State the construction of a number of new lines and
the linking up of others. Nine years passed before this particular
line, which presented enormous difficulties, was completed; it pierces
no less than three of the ranges of Alps. It may not be generally
realised, we may remark in passing, how very large a portion of the
Alpine system is included in Austria. Nearly one-quarter of the
Austrian dominions is embraced by these mountains. They extend through
the Rhaetian, Noric, Salzburg, Carnic, Dinaric, and Julian, and other
chains, and the new railway traverses no less than three, the Tauern,
Karawanken, and Julian chains. The tunnels cutting these mountains are
respectively 8520 metres, 7976 metres, and 6399 metres in length.
Any one traversing this route would do well to spend some days at
Salzburg, in order to see the town itself with its cathedral and
fortress, and also to visit the Salzkammergut with its galaxy of lovely
lakes, including the Attersee and Mondsee, or Gmunden, where is the
Duke of Cumberland’s summer residence, and Ischl, where the emperor
himself lives at the best season of the year. The railway after leaving
Schwarzach passes by many a gorge and viaduct and embankment, across
precipices and around hills, to Badgastein, the famous health resort,
with its hotels and bathing establishments and wonderful scenery, at
the foot of the Tauern range. It is after traversing this range that
the railway descends into Carinthia, which can show some scenery as
beautiful as any in Austria. The line touches at Mallnitz and runs high
above the Möll valley dotted with huts and cottages, which show up like
toy dwellings from the heights above. From the station Obervellach
climbers can ascend the Great Glockner. Once again by tunnels and
viaducts, and an ever-changing panorama of mountain and valley, it
reaches Spittal-Millstättersee, the station for Millstättersee, a lake
which bathes the wooded hills of the Millstätteralps. From Spittal
to Villach the trains run over the lines of a private company, the
Sudbahn. This railway deserves a special note. It is part of the line
from Vienna to Trieste, and was engineered by Karl von Ghega, an
Austrian who had visited America to study the problems connected with
his craft. It was built at a time of great commotion and disturbance
in the monarchy, 1848–50, and is amazing in itself with its tunnels
and viaducts and cuttings and embankments even at this time, but when
considered as a feat performed in the early days of railway-making is a
positive marvel. Sixteen thousand men were employed on the making,
and the blasting of rock-work was mistaken at Vienna for the cannon of
an army of insurgents!
[Illustration: STYRIA: THE GRIMMING, FROM PÜRGG]
Villach is a town which forms an excellent centre, being on the lines
connected with Vienna, Venice, Botzen, and Meran. From here there are
views of the glacier-covered Ankogel and other mountains in the Seebach
valley. Through the Karawanken Alps we come down into the atmosphere
of the Mediterranean, and find everything more advanced and smiling
than on the northern side. Here we are in Carniola. The line crosses
the Save valley by a viaduct 165 metres long, runs through a tunnel,
and eventually reaches Veldes--another health resort--with a castle
standing high above a lake. Other tunnels follow, and at last we come
to the Wocheiner See, lying in a deeply cut cleft and most wonderfully
situated. This gives its name to the last of the Alpine tunnels, that
through the Julian Alps, and then we arrive at the most difficult and
impressive part of the new railway, where the engineering feats make us
hold our breath. Through the Isonzo valley we pass, with the river of
that name flowing deep-green and curiously bright among water-carved
white rocks. The river is crossed by a viaduct not once only, but
again, and the second time by what is the largest stone railway bridge
in the world at Salcano, 36 metres above the water. Tunnel after tunnel
follows, until we reach Gorz, the capital of the principality of Gorz
and Gradiska, the houses are grouped round the castle on its hill, and
the place enjoys renown as a winter resort on account of the mildness
of its climate. It is not until we are through the Opcina tunnel that
we emerge to see the panorama of the Adriatic.
Styria lies to the east of Carinthia and Carniola and is no whit
less interesting. It is traversed by the range of the Carnic, here
called the Styrian or Karawanken Alps. Of these, the highest peak
is the Stou, 7346 feet, but higher still is the Hochgolling, 9392
feet, in the prolongation of the Tauern range. The whole country is
mountainous, and in consequence it is, like so much else of the Empire,
rich in minerals; its iron mines are well worked and produce a large
quantity of ore annually. There are also numerous mineral springs,
of iron, of alkali, and of brine. Gratz, which is the capital town,
has a population of over 100,000. There is a university here, and the
inhabitants are almost all Roman Catholic; about two-thirds of them
are German. The industrial side of Styria is worked much better than
most parts of the Dual Monarchy. There is a good manufacture of iron
tools and agricultural implements. The country also produces linen,
paper, shoes, glass, and many other things. It was at one time held
by Hungary, but has generally shared the fate of the two adjacent
provinces. Styria shared in the Reformation, but was re-Catholicised
by the determined efforts of the Archduke Charles in the sixteenth
century. He settled the Jesuits in Gratz and set up a Catholic
printing-press there. “A university for Jesuit instruction was founded
in 1586. The nobles were obliged under pain of disgrace and even
punishment to send their children to this university, and no one was
allowed to attend the heretical schools of Germany.” When Charles died
his work was carried on by his successor Ferdinand, who “began by
driving all the Protestant preachers from Gratz and other towns; he
then took possession of their schools, burnt their books, and forced
the members of the Reformed churches to sell their property and quit
the country. The Capuchins were sent for to help the Jesuits to bring
back the people to the right way, and liberty of conscience was stifled
for long years to come” (_History of Austria-Hungary_, by Louis Leger).
CHAPTER XII
THE TYROL AND ITS HEROES
It certainly would be no exaggeration to say that the best-known part
of Austria, to other nations at all events, is the Tyrol. That strange,
mountainous, beautiful corner of the empire is now as much a playground
for the nations of Europe as Switzerland is. One of the first men to
make a map of the Tyrol was Burghlechner in 1603, and, with the licence
of the time, which allowed strange vagaries in the way of imagination,
he drew it to resemble an eagle clutching with one of its claws the
lion of Venice and with the other the native ibex. The resemblance,
however, is not one that the practical Briton can trace, any more than
he can see bears and human figures in the scattered constellations; to
him the Tyrol, the Austrian part of it, is just a peninsula stretching
out westward from the rest of the country and expanding at the two
outermost corners.
There are several ways of reaching this delightful land by rail, one is
by way of Vorarlberg from Lake Constance to Innsbruck, its capital;
another from the north by way of Munich and Kufstein; another from the
south by the railway over the remarkable pass known as the Brenner, the
most famous of all the Alpine passes in the Tyrol.
One enterprising plan of the Austrian state railways certainly deserves
encouragement from all lovers of beautiful scenery. In 1912 the
Railways made arrangements with the Canadian Pacific Company to put
upon their lines some of the famous observation cars with which all
western travellers are familiar. These cars are constructed so as to
give the traveller the fullest opportunity for seeing the panorama
passed without obstacles, and besides the large plate-glass windows
there is a platform where the view is as free as from a motor car. They
are being built in Austria, and differ a little from the Canadian ones,
having observation platforms at both ends, and these platforms are
covered-in on account of the very numerous tunnels to be traversed in
this hilly country. In connection with the cars a typist, an up-to-date
library, and a free medicine-chest are carried! They have been made
at Prague and in Moravia. Services have been put on from Buchs to
Innsbruck, from Innsbruck to Vienna, and, as already explained, from
Salzburg to Trieste, and places are available to first or second-class
passengers on payment of five kronen in addition to the usual fares,
a krone being equal to tenpence. These two routes have been chosen
to cross the country from west to east and from north to south.
Approaching from the west we get the first view of the Tyrol after
passing through the Arlberg tunnel,--the fourth largest in Europe. All
the valleys are crowned by gleaming peaks, the pastures look vividly
green, and the little huts and farms absurdly neat. Through towering
mountains 6000 feet or more, over the mighty single arch of the
Tresanna bridge we pass to Landeck and the upper valley of the Inn. To
the south glisten the glaciers of Wildspitze and Weisskugel, rising
above the Oetztal valley before we sweep downward to Innsbruck.
Innsbruck is generally the first objective of the man who visits the
Tyrol, and only when he has arrived there does he begin to think how he
is going to jump off. Innsbruck is in itself a fascinating town, with
picturesque streets ending in mountain heights crowned with glittering
snow and appearing near enough to be reached with a well-directed
stone. The town stands in a cross-stream of continental traffic, for
it is on the Berlin-Rome and the Paris-Vienna-Constantinople lines,
and most people who have penetrated Europe at all have come across it
on one or the other. Though the capital of such a mountainous land,
and itself surrounded with mountains, it stands on a plain, with the
river Inn winding along through it close to its junction with the
Sill. Like so many other places, Innsbruck is the daughter of one of
its own suburbs, a little place called Wilten, which is far older as
a burgh, but has now sunk to comparative insignificance in the growth
of its mighty offspring. Innsbruck is now well supplied with trams
and funiculars, and hotels on the heights as well as in the streets;
and when one wanders up the mountain-sides one comes on the little
kiosks and beer-houses so dear to the Germans, but in spite of all this
Innsbruck remains unspoilt.
Italian influence is very noticeable in the architecture, especially
in the old quarter, where many houses have arcades, and are covered
with frescoes. The name of the town means “Bridge of Inn,” but the
old wooden bridge, which saw desperate fighting between the Tyrolese
and Bavarians, has been swept away, and there is now only an iron
“structure,” identical with many a hundred others. A curious item
pointed out to visitors is the bow-window of a palace, covered with
copperplates, heavily gilt, and known as the “Golden Roof.” The monarch
called “Frederick of the Empty Purse” built this freak in order to
demonstrate the injustice of his popular nick-name!
A more important monument, from a material point of view at all events,
is that of Maximilian I. This is one of the best known of its kind on
the continent, and is visited by hundreds every year. It shows the
emperor kneeling in prayer, and around him are twenty-eight colossal
figures in bronze, like warriors guarding his repose. Among these are
Clovis of France, Theodoric the Goth, the British King Arthur, many of
the Austrian rulers and their wives. There are no less than twenty-four
bas-reliefs in fine Carrara marble on the sides of the sarcophagus,
depicting scenes in the emperor’s life. His marriage, his battles, his
sieges, his marches, his councils are all given with especial care;
the dress and arms of the figures introduced are true to life, and the
cities which come in as backgrounds have evidently been represented
as truly as possible. This was done by Alexander Colin of Malines,
who finished it in 1565, excepting the four last plaques, which show
quite another hand. Notwithstanding the magnificence of this monument,
Maximilian is not buried here but at Neustadt, near Vienna. He passed a
fortnight every winter in a cell in the monastery of the Capuchins at
Innsbruck, cooking what food he wanted and attending to his own needs.
The story accounting for this strange custom tells of a day when the
Archduke was hunting chamois in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck and lost
his footing on a giddy precipice. He caught on some projecting forked
branch, and there he swung. His followers, who seem to have made no
attempt to rescue him, gave him up for lost, and having by some means
brought a priest to the foot of the precipice persuaded him to extend
the holy Sacrament in the direction of the king, as a softening of the
terrible end before him. But a chamois hunter passing along the top of
the rock risked his life on the face of the cliff and succeeded in
saving the monarch. The precipice where this is said to have occurred
is Martinwand (the wall of St. Martin), and is nearly 800 feet high.
In memory of his deliverance Maximilian became a hermit every winter
thereafter.
From the very earliest times there must have been some sort of a fort
to guard the entrance to the Brenner Pass, one of the best known ways
through the Alps in this region. The Romans, of course, seized upon
this strategic position, and fortified it.
It was in the twelfth century that the Counts of the Tyrol first began
to be noticed, and Meinhard, who ruled at the end of the thirteenth
century, consolidated the country, and held all the land within
the limits as at present known. He held at the same time Carinthia
and Styria. His grand-daughter Margaret, known through the ages as
“Pocket-mouth,” the equivalent of the “Muckle-moued” Meg of Scottish
history, inherited the country on the death of her father, Henry of
Carinthia, in 1335. But on the death of her only son, ten years later,
she ceased to take any interest in public affairs, and made over all
her possessions to the House of Hapsburg, and the land has been since
held as the personal property of that house; and the people have
displayed astonishing loyalty to their rulers, so much so, that, on
account of this and its position and impregnable hills the Tyrol has
been called “The Shield of Austria.” But there was an interregnum
in the rule of the Hapsburgs in the time of Buonaparte. The name of
Andreas Hofer stands out in the Tyrol as that of the supreme patriot
which national history seldom lacks. He was one of the few men who
dared to defy the Colossus who bestrode Europe and terrified men into
submission by his invincibility even before they had met him. Andreas
was the son of an innkeeper in the Passeir valley, and innkeepers in
those days, especially in country places, played an important part.
It was the innkeeper who collected and disseminated all the news from
the surrounding district; his house was a focus for any common cause,
and he himself, by reason of his position and authority, was looked
up to and respected. In these circumstances an innkeeper must be a
strong man, mentally and physically, to succeed, for if he cannot
rule his own passions, and is too weak to enforce his authority, he
will soon go under. The Passeir or Pusterthal valley, in which young
Hofer was brought up, is one of the most important in the country,
extending from Lienz to Mulbach, a distance of nearly ten miles. It
is best known in these days under the name of Pusterthal. Margaret
Maultasch, or Pocket-mouth, peculiarly favoured this valley, and only
a very short time before the country became subject to Austria, gave
to the inhabitants the privilege of pasture on both sides of the river
Etsch as far as Eisach, and also the right to carry salt, venison, and
wine over the Gaufen. A large trade in horses was the consequence,
and Hofer senior took part in it, bringing up his son to it. Andreas
was born in 1767, and thus was twenty-nine when the war broke out
with the French in 1796, but it was many years later before he came
prominently to the front. He is described as having been of Herculean
make, with black eyes and brown hair; he stooped considerably from
having been accustomed to carry heavy burdens over the hills before
he had come to his full strength. His voice was soft and pleasing and
his smile good-natured. His long black beard was a very noticeable
feature of his appearance reaching to his waist. He had been one of
the representatives of Pusterthal to the Diet of 1790, which shows
that he had travelled a little and was educated. The traffic he had
carried on in wine and horses had led to his meeting people of many
races, and he spoke Italian fluently though in the Venetian dialect.
He wore the dress of his country, a large black hat with a broad brim,
adorned with black ribbons and a black curling feather, a short green
coat, red waistcoat, over which were green braces, a broad black girdle
with a border, short black breeches with red or black stockings, and
occasionally boots. Such are the details which have come down to us
from his contemporaries.
[Illustration: INNSBRUCK (TYROL)]
In 1797 Buonaparte, having frightened Italy into submission, crossed
the Alps and advanced on Vienna. The Austrian monarch thereupon sued
for peace, and for the moment gained it, but as is invariably the case,
weakness defeats its own end, and he was made to yield more and more
as he gave way. The whole map of Europe was disorganised and remade to
suit the conqueror’s will without regard to justice or right, and in
the beginning of the new century worse followed, for Buonaparte, having
meantime been over into Egypt, returned to Europe and marched upon
Vienna, entering it as a victor. This time he snatched away again the
Venetian territory he had previously granted to Austria as payment for
her compliance, and handed over the whole of the Tyrol to Bavaria.
This infamous transaction was endorsed by the Treaty of Pressburg. The
Tyrolese, however, had not been idle during the quiet years, but had
organised and trained their forces and were not in the least disposed
to acquiesce. Austria had treated them shamefully, but they, for their
part, were willing to fight for the rights so iniquitously reft away.
Terrible fighting ensued between the Bavarians and their allies the
French, who entered the Tyrol, and the natives under the leadership of
Hofer and his comrade Speckbacher, with the support of Haspinger the
Capuchin, who did not fight but inspired others to do so. The Tyrolese
began by inflicting an overwhelming defeat on the invaders at Sterzing,
where they made every use of narrow passes and their knowledge of
the country. When the battle raged in the passes, the peasants, who
had stationed themselves on the heights, hurled down masses of rock,
tree-trunks, and stones upon their enemies beneath, and speedily
disorganised them.
Innsbruck was next the scene of a wild fight, where, with tremendous
bravery, the natives repulsed the foe, though many of them had no
better weapons than axes and pitchforks and other implements of
agriculture. But without arms, money, or support, it was impossible to
keep up such an unequal contest, the Tyrolese were inevitably beaten at
Worgl, and afterwards the Bavarians occupied Innsbruck. The persistence
and tenacity of the mountaineers were never shown to better advantage,
for even while the enemy occupied their capital with a force it would
have been foolhardy to attack, they posted themselves all round on the
heights, and with eye and finger skilled by the chase of the native
chamois, picked off every enemy who ventured within range of their
unerring rifles. Fortune once more favoured the weaker side, and at
Berg-Isel in May, and again in the autumn, the mountaineers defeated
the Bavarians with great loss. After this Hofer became the head of the
government of his native land. He took up his quarters at the imperial
castle in Innsbruck, and on October 4 a great festival was held in his
honour, when he was formally invested with a medal at the foot of the
tomb of the Emperor Maximilian. The Austrians, who by this time were
once more at war with France, supported the Tyrol. The Bavarians only
waited to gather up fresh forces before again hurling themselves on
their foe, insignificant in numbers but formidable in courage. The
Tyrolese were driven in from the frontiers, and had the worst of it
whenever they met the tide of advancing soldiers. In the midst of these
calamities they heard that peace had been finally concluded between
France and Austria, and that their own monarch had handed them over
definitely to the Bavarians. After this hundreds of the peasants threw
down their arms and submitted, and Eugène Beauharnais, Buonaparte’s
stepson, was sent to take command. Hofer did not give in but made
a despairing attempt to renew his defence, though he was forced to
evacuate Innsbruck. He retired to the mountains and a price was set
on his head. It was now the end of November, and snow lay thick in
the passes; in his solitary hut far up on the mountain-side he was
dependent for supplies on his friends, and one of them, a treacherous
priest named Douay, gave away his whereabouts to the enemy, who
marched upon him with a large force, and with every precaution. They
took him and his wife, as well as his son--who was only twelve--and
his daughter, prisoners to Botzen, and carried them afterwards on to
Mantua, where Hofer was accorded the farce of a trial by court-martial,
and was by Buonaparte’s orders executed twenty-four hours after.
On the broad bastion, at a little distance from the Porta
Ceresa, the commanding officer halted his men. The grenadiers
formed a square open in the rear; twelve men and a corporal
stepped forward, while Hofer remained standing in the centre.
The drummer then offered him a white handkerchief to bind his
eyes, and told him that it was necessary to kneel down, but
Hofer declined the handkerchief, and peremptorily refused to
kneel, observing that he was used to stand upright before his
Creator, and in that posture he would deliver up his spirit to
Him. He cautioned the corporal to perform his duty well, at the
same time presenting him with a piece of twenty kreuzers, and
having uttered a few words by way of farewell, expressive of
his unshaken attachment to his native country, he pronounced
the word Fire! with an unshaken voice. His death was not
instantaneous, for at the first shot he sank only to his knees;
a merciful shot, however, at last despatched him. The spot on
which he fell is still considered sacred by his countrymen and
companions in arms (_Memoirs_ from the German, 1820).
His wife and children were allowed to return to Austria, and Buonaparte
gave them a pension and afterwards permitted the widow, at her earnest
wish, to go back to the valley where she had lived. The conqueror
behaved generously enough, now that the man who had given him so much
trouble was out of the way.
In 1823 Hofer’s body was brought back to the Tyrol, and now a marble
monument in Innsbruck commemorates this brave and upright man. It was
after the fall of Buonaparte that the Tyrol reverted to its ancient
rulers, the House of Hapsburg.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MOUNTAIN PASSES
The Tyrol, which is not much more than half as large as Switzerland,
is an extraordinarily mountainous country, and these mountains are
divided by one or two deeply marked valleys, so that the character of
the country is different from that of the Republic, where mountains
and valleys and even plains are mingled inextricably. The Tyrol is a
paradise for rock climbers from all over the world, and in fact as soon
as the Bavarian border is crossed, near Kufstein, some rock pinnacles
and precipices are seen not unlike the Dolomites on a small scale,
which so tempt the adventurous novice that he is apt to think he can
tackle them without a guide, one peak, the Todtenkirchel (Death’s
Chapel), being thus known from the number of accidents which have
occurred to the reckless in attempting it. Any traveller who does not
intend to climb mountains and get off beaten tracks, must in the Tyrol
be prepared to follow certain well-defined routes. Of the entrances to
the country we have already spoken. One of the main passes is that
of the Brenner, running north and south, along which the Berlin-Rome
line passes. This goes down to Roveredo, and soon gains the plains of
Italy. Another great valley, roughly crossing this at right angles, is
the valley of the Inn, which runs from Switzerland to Kufstein, and
so out to Bavaria. The third main artery is that crossing from east
to west, having the Pusterthal as its eastern wing, and another from
Botzen to Glurns as its western, but as the two run across the main
axis they may be considered as one. In connection with the latter must
be mentioned the famous Stelvio Pass over the Alps, from Switzerland
to the Tyrol, a little south of Glurns. This is the highest pass
crossed by a carriage-road in Europe, attaining a height of over
9000 feet. It is only open for three months in the year, and is so
marvellously graded that the tremendous ascent is comparatively little
felt, and it rises over the shoulder of the Ostler Alp, the highest
in the Tyrol. There are, of course, many smaller ones, but these are
the great highways marked out by nature. The valley of the Inn stands
apart from the rest of the Tyrol, shut in by mountains and having
only one outlet to the south, the Brenner Pass. In the midst of this
valley is the capital of the country, Innsbruck. There are many other
extremely interesting places in the valley of the Inn, including Hall,
where there is a celebrated salt manufactory which has been carried on
since the beginning of the fourteenth century. “A path leads up the
ravine towards the mines, which lie about eight miles further in the
heart of the mountain. The grandeur of the views, and the ruggedness
of the objects, in traversing a gorge which penetrates so many miles
into the recesses of the mountain, may be imagined. Enormous masses of
overhanging rock seem to be suspended above almost by a miracle; old
pine forests hang upon the rugged cliffs; the torrent rushing by is
spanned by bridges of snow, while huge unmelted avalanches lie in its
bed below, cascades tumble from a hundred heights, while peaks, some
dark, some snowy, many thousand feet high almost close overhead, and
seem to jut into the sky.” The valley of the Inn is bounded by lofty
mountain ranges on both sides, and is of an average breadth of two to
six miles. It is highly cultivated, and a good deal of Indian corn is
grown, the little patches of agricultural land pushing up the slopes of
the steep ground as they overflow the valley.
[Illustration: KUFSTEIN (TYROL)]
The Brenner Pass, as one of the gateways of the Alps, is known by name
to many who could not place it geographically did their lives hang
on the chance. Numberless military expeditions have wound their way
through these precipices and crags, beginning with the wild tribes of
the ages before history has detailed records, on to the days of the
Romans, who made the road through the pass. Theodoric, Odoacer, and
Attila all made use of this pass, and some attribute the origin
of the name to Brennus, the Gaul who harried the city of Rome. Not
only was the pass the highway for armies, but for trade and bands of
merchants, whose lives indeed in the Middle Ages were seldom less
adventurous than those of recognised men of war. They poured their
caravans with rich freight through this defile. Traversed now by a
railway, the modern traveller has the advantage of being able to sit at
ease and enjoy the scenery while the powerful locomotives (often two)
do the straining and panting to the highest altitude at 4600 feet, for
here there is no tunnel to mar the view or choke the traveller with
briquette-smoke, as on so many Italian railways. The railway curves and
curves again in its ascent up the incline, only having recourse to very
brief tunnels and rock cuttings. The line is part of that from Berlin
to Rome and is owned by a private French-Italian company. The station
at the summit level is called Brenner, and to the south of it is
Sterzing. The ascent from Innsbruck to Brenner strikes any one who sees
it for the first time as fine, but when he has penetrated further, and
explored the descent from Brenner to Brixen, he forgets all about it in
the much grander scenery unrolled before him. Sterzing is celebrated
in the annals of the Tyrolese for the desperate fight for liberty in
1806. The little town stands high and is situated in an open place. It
is overlooked by a castle, and it may be remarked that castles, mostly
ruined, are seen in inaccessible and desolate spots all over the
Tyrol. Their number is legion and hundreds may be counted.
The valleys of the Eisach and Adige, lying south of the Brenner
mountain are quite different, and, as is natural, the Germanic
influence is most strongly felt on the north of the great barrier,
and the Italian on the south. The River Eisach joins the Rienz south
of the Brenner, and afterwards meets the Adige at Botzen, whence it
is known by the last name for the rest of its course to the Adriatic.
Botzen, Meran, and Brixen are the most important places in this central
zone. On the heights of the Brenner pass little produce can be grown,
but in descending one comes again on fruitful fields of Indian corn,
walnut trees growing luxuriantly, fruit trees of every kind, especially
cherries, and lastly, vineyards plentiful and promising as we get on to
the lowlands near the Lago di Garda. It fulfils the Biblical estimate
of a prosperous land with its cornfields and vineyards and olive groves.
The other valley, the Pusterthal, has already been spoken of in
connection with Hofer, whose native place it was. This runs between the
Carnic Alps and the Great Glockner which is 12,464 feet high. The River
Rienz runs down from the Carnic Alps through the Pusterthal, and the
mighty River Drave begins here as a tiny streamlet.
The Great Glockner can be ascended from Heiligenblut, a little Alpine
village nestling on its slopes, surrounded by deep ravines, fringed
with woods, which carry downward foaming torrents, while behind all and
dominating all are the flanks of the huge mountain.
[Illustration: INN VALLEY IN WINTER (ENGADINE)]
If such is the nature of their country, what is the character of the
people? Like all mountain folk, they are hardy, adventurous, and brave.
They also cherish a high sense of independence. They live moderately
and are frugal and sparing, but there is not much real poverty. A
large class of the men still remain peasant-farmers, tilling their own
land in much the same way as their fathers and grandfathers tilled it
before them, by means of unremitting personal toil. Some, it is true,
have learned easier ways of making a living, at all events during the
tourist season, as guides, hangers-on to hotels, and so forth, but
in the out-of-the-way valleys and off the beaten track the people
are unspoiled, and tip-hunting is unknown. Roman Catholicism is the
religion of the country and the peasantry are devout and simple-minded,
sharing in the superstitions of their kind. Their chief amusements
are social events, such as weddings and funerals, and they “enjoy” a
funeral as much as the lower classes in England. Rough dancing to the
tune of home-made instruments plays a large part in their lives, and
the people are mostly musical. The peculiar jodelling of the mountains
requires a trained ear and melodious voice, and the young lads learn
to practise this art from their earliest years. They sing a good deal
too, and singing and dancing go together. The men are born sportsmen
and know the ways of their own wild hills almost as well as the chamois
which grows yearly more shy and difficult.
The name of the Tyrol in the ears of Europeans is synonymous with all
that is picturesque and daring, with feats of hardihood and sport
without equal elsewhere, and this reputation is not a reputation only
but rests on solid fact even to our own times. The men and girls are
accustomed to hard work and difficult ascents from their childhood,
and, owing to the emigration of the men, much of the hardest work, such
as timber-felling, hut-building, and the carrying of heavy weights,
falls on the women. Mr. Baillie Grohman, who knows the Tyrol as few men
know it, speaks of “rows of women with short pipes in their mouths, and
elbows leaning on the table, drinking their pint of Tyrolese wine [in
the village inn] after their hard work.”
In the early spring-time, when the snow draws upwards on the
mountain-tops, there is an annual migration to the higher levels in
search of fresh pasturage for the herds, and those in charge of them
gradually rise higher and higher as the summer waxes, living in the
simple huts beside the feeding grounds, and cut off from all their
relations for several months at a time. In very many cases these
herd-keepers are women and girls, as the men have gone off to America
or elsewhere to earn the money with which they may return in comfort
to their native land.
The young men are of a lively and untameable disposition, extremely
proud and as ready to fight as two stags. The well-known black-cock
feather is as significant of the Tyrol as the plaid is of the
Highlands, and sometimes when the young man wearing it is in a
pugnacious mood he tips it over contrary to the usual way round, thus
indicating that he is seeking trouble. It is often not long before
he gets it! Even in their dancing a rough exuberance of spirits and
strength, sometimes almost frightening to those accustomed to more
civilised methods, is shown. The men career and caper and kick up their
heavy boots and even raise themselves, resting with their hands on the
shoulders of some strapping lass, and dance with their feet on the
ceiling!
The chamois plays no less notable a part in identifying a Tyrolese to
a tourist than the black-cock’s feather. It would not be Tyrol without
some reminder of the chamois, and innkeepers have been known to prop
up a stuffed animal of this species on an almost inaccessible height
for the edification of their customers! The marvellous agility of the
animal has long passed into a proverb, also his wonderful power of
balance which enables him to leap on to a tiny pinnacle of rock and
stand there with all four hoofs bunched together. He is generally about
three feet long and two feet high at the shoulders, and his long
tapering horns run to about eight inches and are black and polished.
The hair is dark brown and longer on the back than elsewhere; this is
called the “beard” and is the coveted trophy of the hunter. The hoofs
are higher at the edges than on the soles and thus give the animal
its grip on slippery ground. Its sight is remarkably keen, and its
powers of running and leaping incredible. It is altogether wonderfully
equipped by nature for its habitat, and the sport which seeks its life
is fair because the animal has a good chance of outwitting its pursuer.
The chamois live in herds and are usually guarded by a sentinel who
gives the alarm at the faintest disturbance; they feed in summer on
flowers and herbs, and in winter on the young shoots of the pines and
firs. There are large preserves in the Tyrol kept by wealthy men for
their own hunting.
[Illustration: CORTINA AND MTE. CRISTALLO]
After the black-cock’s tail and the chamois, wood-carving comes next
as a subject of admiration for the visitor to the country, and truly
the skill of the people in this art is surprising; during the long dark
winter nights, when there is but little to do, many a delicately-carved
work has been turned out that would do credit to the greatest artist.
These works can be bought in Innsbruck and most of the towns, and
though the prices are “put up” for the stranger, yet, after all, it is
work of a skilled kind and the sale is not either certain or large.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DOLOMITES
The Dolomites occupy the south-eastern corner of the Tyrol. They are
partly in Austria and partly in Italy, and may be concisely described
as bounded by the cities of Brixen, Trient, Belluno, and Lienz as four
corners of a rectangle. The ground lying between these towns is for the
most part the country of the Dolomites, or at any rate is dominated by
them. The best known and highest mountain, the Marmolata, rises almost
in the centre. The valleys in this remarkable region run generally
from north-east to south-west; one great valley beginning near Trient
extends for nearly eighty miles, and forms the bed of the river Avisio;
this valley is one of the usual approaches to the mountains. Another is
from Belluno, and then there is the valley of Ampezzo, passing Cortina,
which is a very favourite route; these three valleys are like main
clefts or divisions, giving comparatively easy access to the knots of
mountainous country. The name dolomite, as applied to the particular
formation of these curious rocks composed of carbonate of lime and
magnesia, was derived from that of the French geologist, Dolomieu, who
was born at the town of that name at Isère in France, and was known by
it instead of his own, De Gratet. He first “discovered” this stone,
and the name, which, perhaps from association, sounds so appropriate,
has become closely associated with this region where the rocks of this
formation spring up in greater masses than elsewhere.
When we come to describe the scenery of the Dolomites it is difficult
to do it justice. Chief among the weird attractions of these amazing
freaks of nature is the curious red colouring which is seen when the
sunset lights the high peaks and the valleys lie in blue-grey shadow.
Many and many an artist has been fascinated and enthralled by the
difficulty of putting this extraordinary light on his paper or canvas,
and more than one has given up the task in despair. The peaks look like
nothing on earth so much as red-hot glowing masses of iron fresh from
the forge and casting out a rose-red glow. Yet the rocks themselves
are not red, far from it, their usual colour is a grey or deep indigo;
it is only here and there they are stained with patches of umber and
madder, and only in the light of sunrise or sunset that they assume
that amazing glowing red like burning iron.
Their serrated peaks are of a variety indescribable and have been
compared with alligators’ teeth, while the huge isolated pinnacles or
needles of rock, split off, have tempted climbers to vain feats.
[Illustration: KING LAURIN’S ROSE GARDEN, FROM THE SCHLERN]
The first Englishmen to penetrate this region in a holiday spirit
were Josiah Gilbert and G. C. Churchill, who wrote a book called _The
Dolomite Mountains_. They went for the first time in 1856, returning
again and again in subsequent years, long before holiday-makers
or tourists had ever thought of so doing. These adventurous souls
approached the region at first from the Danube by way of Carinthia
and were accompanied by their no less adventurous wives, and, as they
remark, “we were deprived of the abundant aids which surround the
traveller in Switzerland, and other frequented routes, in the shape of
guides, horses, side-saddles, etc., ... moreover our stock of German
at that time was very limited.” Mules for the ladies, with springless
carts as an alternative occasionally, were the means of conveyance;
sometimes goats’ milk cheese and bread with coffee were the only food
after a tremendous day’s climb; yet these things were taken lightly as
all in the day’s work. And that the age had its compensations none can
doubt, for when the party arrived in the Tyrol we read:
Tyrol is a pleasant country for its roadside inns; spacious,
cool, and clean, they welcome the traveller with old-fashioned
hospitality. On the large upper landing on which the bedrooms
open they usually spread your table, if you are “quality.”
Flowers in pots adorn the wooden balconies, and the landlord’s
daughter will present you with pretty bouquets when you leave,
a finishing touch to the little bill, which is hardly a bill
at all in any sense; it is chalked on the table in items so
small as to convince you these people possess every virtue
under heaven; the best bedrooms even at unlikely places are as
comfortable as need be--beautifully kept, and without any of
that frowzy look so common in an English inn. The furniture is
often walnut-wood; neatly-framed prints are on the walls, and
crimson coverlets on the beds. But the Tyrolese country inn,
in its charming and kindly simplicity, will probably not long
survive.
A few of these inns do indeed still exist but they are far in the
recesses of the country, and on the beaten track have been replaced by
“hotels” of the usual type in every district.
On this the first journey the travellers did not really make
acquaintance with the Dolomites, they only saw them from afar; the
first group they saw in the distance, “needle-pointed, pale and
altogether weird-looking, soaring into the evening sky,” bewitched the
party, and they never rested till they came again and yet again at
intervals of years and grew to know them familiarly.
Returning alone in 1860, Mr. Churchill was able to penetrate the very
heart of the district, approaching from the Botzen side. He gives a
word-picture of the famous Marmolata peak as he first saw it:
This mountain--which might be compared in general form to one
of those mahogany cases for stationery which are to be found in
most counting-houses of the present day--has its slope, a very
steep one, to the north. To the south, east, and west it is
perfectly precipitous and presents nothing but walls of bare
rock. Glaciers cover the greater part of the slope, and their
melting supplies the springs of the Avisio which takes its rise
immediately below them; ... its height, variously estimated,
but which may be taken at 11,200 feet, raises it far above its
loftiest neighbours. It stands in a line of ridge that runs
from north to south through the western Dolomite district and
marks the point where the divergent valleys of the Avisio and
Cordevole originate.
[Illustration: MARMOLATA, FROM VERY HIGH ABOVE CANAZEI]
Seeing it from the other side later he adds:
From this side the Marmolata presents the most striking
contrast to the smooth glacier and rock-slopes and bosses which
are seen on its northern aspect. Not a particle of slope except
the profile of the flattish snowy dome is visible; all else is
sheer precipice, presented cornerwise to the eye, while its
jagged edges retreat foreshortened to the north-west and east
till lost to view.
Another of the most famous peaks, the Rosengarten, thus struck him:
Imagine a gigantic amphitheatre of jagged cleft precipices,
shooting 3000 feet above the spectator, out of a depth far
below him, and reaching, in the Rothewand Spitze, to the
height of 10,200 feet above the sea. Let the arms of this
amphitheatre stretch forward so as to embrace nearly one-half
of his horizon, shutting him up to the one view of a stern
desolate barren face, that presents itself on all sides. Let
successive masses of débris descend from the base of this long
line of precipices through the whole sweep of its circuit, and
threaten to occupy the entire basin below, while still leaving
a small patch of bright green pasture on which a dark spot is
identified as a châlet.
The Rosengarten is a much more typical Dolomite, with its jagged needle
points, than Marmolata with its flatter masses. “The most prominent
impression left on the mind by these Seisser Alp Dolomites was that of
complete separateness and isolation, not only in relation to each other
but to the green slopes on the summits of which they are placed.”
Among the very early travellers to this part was Miss Amelia B.
Edwards, the authoress, who, in 1872, with a woman friend actually had
the temerity to leave behind Switzerland with its luxurious hotels and
“travel made easy” and penetrate into the wild and unknown regions of
the Dolomites, greatly to the disgust of their comfortable well-fed
courier. Writing in the following year she says:
Even now the general public is so slightly informed upon the
subject that it is by no means uncommon to find educated
persons who have never heard of the Dolomites at all, or who
take them for a religious sect, like the Mormons or the Druses.
Such a reproach could hardly be levelled at any one now. The
difficulties encountered by Miss Edwards and her friend may be
concisely summed up in the remark that there were only two side-saddles
at that time in the whole country, and of these only one was for
hire. It was necessary, therefore, for the ladies to bring their own.
Sometimes for days together the friends travelled without meeting a
single stranger to the country either at the inns or on the roads, and
they met only three parties of English during the whole time between
entering the country on the Conegliano side and leaving it by Botzen.
And, even now, over forty years after, the solitary places of the Tyrol
are unspoiled by a crowd of tourists, though fully appreciated by many
a nature-lover.
One of the most remarkable rocks that Miss Edwards saw was the Sasso di
Ronch, which attracts annually hundreds of visitors. This extraordinary
isolated peak stands
... apart and alone, like a solitary remnant of outer
battlement left standing beside a razed fortress; it rises to a
height of at least 250 feet above the grass at its base. Seen
thus in profile, it is difficult to believe that it is the same
Sasso di Ronch which one has been looking at from below. It
looks like a mere aiguille or spire, disproportionately slender
for its height, and curved at the top as if just ready to pitch
over. Some one has compared the Matterhorn to the head and
neck of a war-horse rearing up behind the valley of Zermatt;
so might the Sasso di Ronch from this point be compared to the
head and neck of a giraffe. Standing upon its knife-edge of
ridge--all precipice below, all sky above, the horizon one long
sweep of jagged peaks--it makes as wild and weird a subject as
ever I sat down to sketch before or since. (_A Midsummer Ramble
in the Dolomites_, Amelia B. Edwards.)
The wild confusion of some parts of the Dolomites, their rent and
torn spires, cannot be attributed to volcanic origin, for limestone
is not volcanic; the greater part of the gigantic carving must have
been done by the slow agencies of wind and weather and rain working on
silently through age after age, and in some cases by earthquakes, which
have overthrown the precariously-balanced needles and solid blocks of
stone. One curious peak, which, though attaining to no great height
(9833 feet) is well known owing to its odd form, is the Drei Zinnen or
Three Peaks, rising like three pointing fingers of a giant hand. Miss
Edwards’ description can hardly be improved upon. She says:
As for the Drei Zinnen, they surpass in boldness and weirdness
all the Dolomites of the Ampezzo. Seen through an opening
between two wooded hills, they rise abruptly from behind the
intervening plateau of Monte Piana, as if thrust up from the
centre of the earth, like a pair of tusks. No mere description
can convey, to even the most apprehensive reader, any correct
impression of their outline, their look of intense energy,
of upwardness, of bristling irresistible force. Two barren
isolated obelisks of pale sulphurous orange-streaked limestone,
all shivered into keen scimitar-blades and shark-like teeth
toward the summit, they almost defy the pencil and quite defy
the pen.
[Illustration: THE DREI ZINNEN, FROM THE HIGHEST RIDGE]
Those who have spent an exhilarating holiday among these enchanting
hills will know the freshness of the pure air, the stillness of the
vast solitudes--home of the eagle and chamois--also the comfort of the
rude huts provided by the Alpine Club, where one may shelter and find
warmth and food, paying as he deems right; they will remember days
spent on the glittering glaciers with their treacherous slopes, in
view of the ever-changing ever-new outlines of the tempestuous peaks in
their grotesque formations. No place on earth will ever draw them back
as does the Dolomites, no other can evoke quite the same sensations as
when they gaze on those startling contours or catch their breath to see
the fiery glow rising over a foreground of blue-black firs.
One of the most important of the later improvements is the
Dolomitenstrasse of which the last part was opened in 1909. It leads
through beautiful mountain scenery and over three passes from Botzen to
Cortina, and thence from Cortina to Falzarego. From Botzen it follows
the Brenner road to Kardaun, and then turns into the magnificent gorge
of the Eggental which separates the Latemar group from the Rosengarten
group. This is now one of the most frequented parts of the Dolomites,
with the beautiful blue-green lake of Karer, over which the Latemar
towers with its slender peaks. The road ascends over the green Alps of
the Karer Pass. There are large hotels in all these places now, and
the Tyrolean red wine, at about twopence for a half-pint, is served in
them, also home-brewed beer as well as the familiar Munich or Pilsener.
CHAPTER XV
THE ILLYRIAN STATE
The name Illyria is a very ancient one, going back to centuries B.C.,
when the lands bordering the Adriatic on the eastern side were thus
known. The boundaries of this state are uncertain and indeterminate,
and varied greatly from time to time. Strabo, the ancient historian,
mentions the country, saying that the coast-line was fertile and well
supplied with harbours but that the people were barbarous and warlike.
They are also described as tattooing their bodies and offering human
sacrifices to their deities, but in a year given at various dates B.C.
Illyria was made a Roman province and even became one of the four chief
divisions of the Empire. The fine qualities of the men made the country
a good recruiting-ground for the Roman army, and many of the Illyrians
rose to the purple, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, and
Maximian all being among the number. With the fall of the Empire the
province lost its hold and was ravaged by the Goths. Then the Slavs
and Huns began to occupy the northern land and push further and further
south, and as the small Slavonic states became consolidated, they fell
off from the central authority.
[Illustration: CLISSA: A STUDY IN GREY ROCK]
Shakespeare, who had a taste for placing his scenes in this part of
the world, lays here the action in _Twelfth Night_. In 1809 Buonaparte
revived the ancient name, and included in it many of the more northern
states such as Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, and Croatia. As a matter of
fact this was a statesmanlike plan, as most of these peoples were Slav,
and the fact of being united under the ancient name roused enthusiasm
among them. There was a newspaper established called _The Illyrian
Telegraph_. The poet Vodnik wrote an ode called “Risen Illyria,” part
of which is given in the translation of Louis Leger’s _History of
Austria-Hungary_:
Napoleon has said: “Awake! Arise Illyria!” She wakes, she
sighs. “Who calls me to the light? Oh great hero, is it thou
who wakest me? Thou reachest to me thy mighty hand, thou
liftest me up.
“Our race shall be glorified, I dare to hope. A miracle shall
take place, I dare to prophesy.”
“Napoleon penetrates into the land of the Slovenes, a whole
generation springs from the earth.
“Resting one hand on Gaul, I give the other to Greece that I
may save her. At the head of Greece is Corinth; in the centre
of Europe is Illyria. Corinth is called the eye of Greece;
Illyria shall be the jewel of the whole world.”
Even when in 1816 these provinces were restored to Austria she
retained the name of Illyria for some time, but it was dropped in 1849.
The two provinces, districts, countries--call them what you will--of
Croatia-Slavonia fall within the bounds of Hungary, and the rest here
described within the empire of Austria. It is since the rearrangement
of 1867 that the first-named Dual province has been incorporated with
Hungary, and it cannot, under the present constitution, deal directly
with the monarch, but only approach him through the Hungarian minister.
It shares, as do all the little countries of the Dual Monarchy, in the
common army, the post-office, and the financial dealings of the whole,
yet it has a measure of independence, for it is governed internally
by its own Ban, which odd name signifies its head man, who would be
called President elsewhere. The Ban is nominated by the Hungarian Prime
Minister, though appointed by the monarch, and Croatia-Slavonia sends
deputies to the Hungarian House, and has also its own Diet with ninety
members for the transaction of provincial matters.
The state claims to be the oldest complete one included in the Dual
Monarchy, and dates its independent history back to 924, when Tomislav
welded the country together under his own leadership, and became king.
Since that date the Croatians have shared kings with Hungary more than
once, and the present system of a monarch in common is not at all
novel; but, whereas the Croatians look upon the situation as embracing
two equal nations joined by the tie of a common monarch, the Hungarians
are apt to regard Croatia-Slavonia as a province under Hungary. It is
obvious that both parties will constantly find grievances to discuss
when their views are so diametrically opposite.
At any rate Croatian is the official tongue, and it resembles Servian
more than Hungarian. Public instruction, legislation, and the commands
in the territorial army are carried out in this tongue, and the
national spirit can thereby find outlet. But it is a sore point that
taxes are imposed by the Hungarian parliament, even though forty
Croatian representatives go to the Lower and three to the Upper house
of Hungary. A certain proportion of the money collected in taxes is
handed back for local purposes, and this amount is constantly being
revised.
The country, which occupies such an invidious position politically,
lies between the two rivers Drave and Save, and it falls naturally
into two parts--the plain between these rivers, and the mountainous
country stretching along by the Adriatic. It might be imagined that
the plain would be rich and the most valuable part of the land, but
on the contrary it is the mountains which bring in the revenue, for
they are thickly covered with trees, such as the pine and beech and
chestnut, and the narrow valleys between are astonishingly fertile.
In these forests herds of swine are fed, and in the valleys and the
plain there is a good deal of mixed agriculture. The people are not
idle, and the breeding of cattle and horses is one of their principal
occupations. A very large number of the inhabitants are continually
migrating to America, but the land holds them nevertheless and calls
them back, when they have made money, often by the hardest toil in the
mines; they nearly always return to spend their little fortune in their
native land, which remains in their minds as the ideal of all that is
beautiful and desirable.
We have so far spoken of the joint provinces as a whole, but in reality
it is Slavonia that occupies the rather featureless interior plains
and Croatia that includes the rich and varied scenery along the coast,
where the mountains are probably as rich in minerals as those of
Transylvania, were they properly worked. The Croatians have not shown
themselves amenable to industrial work, they have hardly as yet got
beyond the first stage in the history of a nation, when agriculture or
the supply of man’s natural needs from the soil is the prime work. In
Southern Croatia the climate is often beautiful, and warm enough for
the growth of the vine as well as lemons and oranges, but the winds
sweep sorely over the northern plains and the temperature thus varies
in extremes.
The capital of the country is Agram, and the only port that Hungary
boasts, namely Fiume, lies in Croatia, though it is not of it, for
the port was presented to the Hungarians by Maria Teresa, and has ever
since enjoyed autonomy. When it is realised that this is Hungary’s only
outlet to the sea, its importance may be realised, even though it has
in many ways been overshadowed by the Austrian port of Trieste.
Fiume has 40,000 inhabitants of a curiously mixed blend; the majority,
between 17,000 and 18,000, are Italians; there are only about 3000
Hungarians and between 7000 and 8000 Croatians, while Illyrians,
Germans and Wends form the surplus. The town is governed by a royal
Hungarian governor, and is described as _corpus separatum_ of Hungary.
It possesses picturesque, narrow, and irregular streets in the old part
and a fine new quarter also. There are relics of Roman occupation,
especially well seen in a triumphal arch dating from Roman days; and it
has also a cathedral dating from 1377. Millions have been spent on the
harbour, which has a breakwater about 4000 feet in length. The chief
factories and works in the town are the Whitehead torpedo factory,
paper-mills, paraffin-refining works, and shipbuilding yards.
Beyond the bridge over the Fiumara, on Croatian territory, adjoining
Fiume, is the Croatian town of Susak, well-built and pleasant. In the
mountain heights above, through which the train has wound down to the
coast there are many tunnels and vast precipices. The terrible wind
called the Bora, which rages around here at times, is so violent that
trains have had to be protected by the building of a high stone wall
along the side of the line. Before this was done they were sometimes
actually caught up by the whirling force of the wind, swept from the
lines and dashed into the depths below the embankment on which they
traversed the mountain side.
The western slopes of the tableland, which here drops to the sea, are
called the Karst, and differ from the pleasant wooded heights inland
already described. The Karst is in three terraces, formed of gigantic
blocks of stone heaped on each other in irregular masses, and it is
only in the crevices and deep hollows that any sort of vegetation,
and then only scraggy and stunted bushes, will grow. Forests used to
extend over these heights, but their exposure to the full force of the
terrible Bora, and their wanton destruction by man during the Venetian
occupation, has stripped the rocks bare, and they stand ugly and
ragged, vast and lonely, as a rampart to the ocean.
To the south of Croatia-Slavonia lies another composite country,
namely Bosnia-Herzegovina, which by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 was
henceforward to be administered by Austria, a cession bitterly resented
by Servia and Montenegro, as it drove a wedge between them. They knew
well that once the Austrian foot was there in military occupation never
again would it be withdrawn, and the future proved them right, for in
1908, when the Turk was in no position to protest, the whole control
passed into the power of Austria, and the composite country became as
much a part of the Dual Monarchy as those further north. Both countries
which compose it are mountainous, many of the peaks rising to 6000
feet, and for the most part covered with forest. Lying so far south
crops can here be raised which would not be attempted elsewhere. Those
boxes or bottles of prunes, which so delighted our youth, come in large
quantities from Bosnia, and are simply dried plums, though the flavour
is so different from the fresh article. The vine, olive, fig, and
pomegranate flourish in Herzegovina, but the chief product is tobacco.
Mr. Geoffrey Drage says:
Tobacco is to the inhabitants of Herzegovina what the plum is
to the inhabitants of Bosnia, the one all-important crop and
article of commerce. Tobacco is a government monopoly, but a
monopoly which has proved a boon, and given a great impetus
to this branch of agriculture. The peasants know they have a
certain market for all the tobacco they can grow, and, though
the price paid to growers had diminished by 1904, the peasants
still find it worth while to grow a crop, and the cultivation
is actually increasing.
The names of Bosnia-Herzegovina are translated by some as “the land
of salt” and “the land of stones,” but in regard to Bosnia “the land
of coal” would be more appropriate, for it is said that the whole
country is one vast coal-field, and if ever the time comes that our
present supplies have run out and we have not yet learned to substitute
petroleum, it is probable that here will be found the supplement. There
is plenty of pasture-land in the country, and cattle, sheep, and goats
are raised in large numbers, but the drawback to it all is that there
is no coast-line or seaport, and therefore produce is turned inland for
want of ready access by the coast, where the way is barred by Dalmatia.
When the Austrians annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina one of the reasons they
gave for doing so was that Dalmatia had no hinterland, that it stood in
the air so to speak, a thin strip without support, but the reason seems
somewhat frail; if it had been the other way and the Austrians had
owned Bosnia-Herzegovina and sought an outlet to the sea-coast, as many
another restless nation is now seeking to do, their object could have
been more sympathetically considered.
The costume of the Bosnians is peculiar and picturesque; the men wear
the red Turkish fez and their nether garments are fashioned in many
and complicated folds around the seat, ending in extremities as tight
as putties. This garment is secured by a wide sash or cummerbund, and
above it is a white shirt covered by a sleeveless waistcoat richly
embroidered. A Bosnian gentleman in full dress is a very beauteous
object.
Dalmatia is a long narrow strip, forming practically the only
sea-board of Austria, and therein lies its value. The only Austrian
seaport, Trieste, is at the northern end. The people show strongly
their connection with the Italians, to whose country theirs was so
long joined. It belonged to the Venetian republic for the greater
part of its career, but in 1796, by the Treaty of Campo-Formio, fell
into Austria’s hands. Dalmatian history is a long series of see-saws
between the Slav and Italian power, the country falling sometimes
under the dominion of the one and sometimes under that of the other.
The Croatians consider that Dalmatia ought to be incorporated into
their state, and as the population is of the same race as themselves,
Serbo-Croatians being in an overwhelming majority, against about 3
per cent of Italians, there is something to be said for this view.
Dalmatia, however, is part of the Austrian empire, and sends eleven
members to the Reichsrath, while Croatia, as we have seen, is included
in Hungary. Cattle-breeding, the growing of vines and olives, fishing
and shipbuilding, chiefly occupy the inhabitants of this coast-land,
and any one who visits Dalmatia cannot fail to be struck by the
enormous number of goats kept by the peasantry.
By far the best-known town in Dalmatia is Spalato, famous by reason of
the magnificent ruin of the palace of the Roman Emperor, Diocletian.
This was built in 303 A.D., and a good deal of it is still standing.
The little town is situated at the head of a bay backed up by a line of
low hills, and the Emperor showed taste and judgment when he selected
this site. His palace covered about eight acres of ground, and the
south front facing the harbour was 521 feet in length. The palace was
built in a quadrangular form, and each side faced one point of the
compass. The building was more of a camp than what we are accustomed
to associate with the word palace, and enclosed within its walls many
buildings, divided by regular streets running from the four gates in
the outer walls. Here the Emperor Diocletian retired in the full prime
of life, for he was only fifty-nine, to cultivate his garden and live
in peace. Few men nowadays can shake themselves free from the fetters
of business, and many postpone the enviable day of freedom simply
because they have run so long in harness, they fear to fall without it.
Yet this vigorous man laid aside power and responsibility and grandeur
with firm determination. His action was the more wonderful in that
he was born of slave parents, and might therefore have been expected
to cling more closely to the purple robe than those whose lives have
always been lapped in it.
In the town, compressed into a space at one time sufficient only for
the palace of one man, the houses are high and jammed together, the
streets mere alleys, the buildings are entirely irregular and placed
anyhow, the sunshine hardly penetrates the long narrow slits between.
The city is now the See of a Bishop, and has an extensive trade in wine
and oil. In its best days it was one of the most important ports on
the Adriatic.
[Illustration: SPALATO: A DOOR IN DIOCLETIAN’S PALACE]
That Spalato has a strong rival in Ragusa, the capital, is shown by Mr.
Geoffrey Drage’s remarks:
Ragusa, the Athens of Illyria, perhaps the most interesting,
and certainly one of the most beautiful, towns in Austria.
The ancient city is still surrounded by the massive walls
and frowning towers and bastions which defended it in the
days when Richard Cœur de Lion was so hospitably entertained
there. A great trading centre in the Middle Ages, dating its
origin to Roman times, Ragusa has not only a long vista of
historical memories, but she has also long been eminent in
the world of literature. One of Ragusa’s special glories was
the right of asylum, and her humanitarian ideals were further
shown by her ordinance, the first of the kind on the Continent,
forbidding participation in the slave trade on pain of fine and
imprisonment; furthermore she has the honour of being the first
town in Europe to establish a foundling hospital.
To this we add the delightful little word-picture in Mrs. Russell
Barrington’s book, _Through Greece and Dalmatia_:
The road reminds us of the Riviera--a low wall on the side of
the sea, vegetation among the rocks going down to the water’s
edge; while on our left are hillsides covered with olive trees
and bushes, topped by bare stony summits. As we approach
Ragusa, villas in gardens appear on either side of our route,
and oleander bushes in masses. Evidently the oleander is the
flower of Ragusa as the _Campanula pyramidalis_ is of Cattaro,
and September is its special month. In various shades we see
the delightful bunches of blossom everywhere. What can be more
beautiful! The delicate pink, the deep carnation red, the
creamy, and the pure white, the pale buff and carmine scarlet,
thrown so lavishly in clusters from slender stalks and pointed
grey-green leaves. As we turn into the garden of the Hotel
Imperial, we find ourselves in a veritable bower of oleanders.
* * * * *
Ragusa is an ancient republic and stood independent of the rest of
Dalmatia until united thereto by Napoleon in 1809. The history of
Ragusa is exceedingly interesting. The rich seaport, established since
the seventh century, was coveted by many of the nations around, and
from time to time for safety’s sake the inhabitants had to submit
nominally, at least, to one or another in order to preserve their real
independence. In this way they came under the sway of Venice, they
bowed subsequently to Hungary and even paid tribute to the Turks,
but they managed nevertheless to keep their plums unfingered. In the
fifteenth century 300 ships traded from the port, Ragusa boasted 40,000
inhabitants, and had agents and consuls at all known Mediterranean
ports. But in 1667 a cruel earthquake tore the town to pieces, killing
over 5000 people, and the town never completely recovered from the
blow. After having been joined to Dalmatia it came into the possession
of Austria. Even now, though containing but a few thousand inhabitants,
it is known as a centre of Slav literature, and the reminiscences of
the early days, when in the Middle Ages it was the seat of a school
of Slav poetry which produced works still considered classics, hang
around it. Ragusa has brought forth many famous sons including the
mathematician, Bos Kovic.
Trieste occupies the proud position of being Austria’s only port, and
supports the burden easily. Through a long and chequered history the
city has generally managed to retain control of its own affairs, and
the inhabitants look on themselves as a race apart. Standing on the
debatable ground between Italy and Austria, ground so often drenched
in blood, coveted as a jewel beyond price by the Venetians, Trieste is
scarred with war. She carries the traffic, necessitated by her being
the outlet for the empire, without difficulty, and holds her own in
political affairs. As a writer in the _Times_ (December 13, 1912) says:
Austrian shipping has developed greatly during recent years. In
1901 the Commercial Marine consisted of 211 steamers of a net
tonnage of 190,000. By the end of 1911 the steamers numbered
330 and the net tonnage was 367,785. During the same period
the number of sailing vessels decreased and their net tonnage
fell from 30,000 to 19,607. In appreciating this development it
must be remembered that Austria is unfavourably situated for
maritime trade. In spite of the length of the Dalmatian coast
and its good natural harbours, Dalmatia is one of the poorest
districts in Europe, and is without a developed interior or
railway communication. Trieste thus remains for Austria, like
Fiume for Hungary, the only considerable port. Trieste suffers,
however, from the lack of an inland region with navigable
rivers and developed industrial districts. Such districts
exist only in the north of Austria and their products gravitate
naturally towards Hamburg by way of the Elbe, notwithstanding
the reductions of Austrian railway tariffs. In view of this
circumstance the growth of Austrian shipping since the
beginning of the century is the more remarkable, especially
as it proceeds less from trade with the Levant and Asiatic
harbours than from trade with South America, for which Genoa
is more favourably situated, and with North America, to which
Northern and Western Europe enjoy shorter access by sea.
[Illustration: RAGUSA: THE PLOČE ROAD FROM SAN GIACOMO. MORNING]
Trieste is connected with Villach and Salzburg by rail, and this is
one of the routes on which the Austrian government has agreed to place
the Canadian observation cars. The steamers of the Austrian-Lloyd line
sail from here, and it is the point of departure for India, China, and
Japan. Quite recently the Canadian-Pacific Railway Company have put on
a service of steamers to link up Austria with Canada, a fact of which
numbers of emigrants are taking advantage. A voyage of four and a half
hours lies between Trieste and Pola, the Austrian naval base. The
principal government dockyard is at Pola, but at Trieste there are two
building slips capable of receiving dreadnoughts.
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSYLVANIA AND GALICIA
On the west of Hungary lies that mountainous land, rich in minerals,
namely Transylvania, which so long stood alone and even now is
possessed of a spirit of independence, which is likely to give
trouble, though for the time in full legislative and political
union with Hungary. The Magyar name for the country is Erdely,
meaning forest-land, and is akin to the Latin one with its obvious
signification “beyond the woods.” The country contains about 21,000
square miles, and on account of its rugged heights resembles a great
natural fortress. The chief peoples, the Wallachians, Saxons, and
Roumanians, different as they are among themselves, are united in
common discontent against the attempts of Hungary to impose her own
language and ideas on the land they share. They cannot forget that
for nearly two centuries, from 1538, they were an independent kingdom
under a king of their own choosing, and it was not till 1699 that the
influence of Austria as suzerain was allowed. The support of the Turks
alone rendered this independence possible, it is true, but, however
obtained, it gave the people a taste for freedom. In 1849 Transylvania
became an Austrian crown-land, but since the settlement of 1867 it has
been an integral part of Hungary. The university founded at Klausenburg
or Kolozsvar in 1872 is Hungarian, and Magyar is the official language.
The hardy race of men called Wallachs are as different from the
Magyars as the Magyars are from the Austrians. Besides the Wallachs
and Roumanians, which are the two dominant races, there are also Jews,
Armenians, Saxons, and Szeklers, who are descended from early Magyar
settlers, and have developed on different lines from their brothers in
the plain. The Transylvanians are as restless, and as great a thorn
in the side of Hungary as she is in that of Austria, and the complete
Magyarisation of the country can never be carried out with these
opposing elements behind. The State schools teach in Magyar, but in
opposition to these a large number of elementary voluntary schools are
kept up where Roumanian is the principal tongue.
There are passes into the country from the Hungarian side, but toward
Russia the mountains are so precipitous and steep that they give the
appearance of artificial escarpments made for defence on a giant scale.
The highest peaks attain a height of over 8000 feet. The climate varies
greatly, the summers being very hot and the winters intensely cold.
[Illustration: HARVEST-TIME IN TRANSYLVANIA]
Transylvania is completely hemmed in by the South-Eastern Carpathians,
besides being cut up by them, and its people are mountaineers, looking
with disdain on the dwellers in the level plain. To them life without
heights and hollows, and the constant sense of watchful grandeur given
by rising peaks, would be tame and colourless. The mountaineer’s
muscles are wrought to india-rubber by continual change of action.
His spring is as light as that of a roebuck. To look down into the
blackness of a crevasse, to see the roaring torrent filled by the last
downfall of rain or by the melting of the pure white peaks far above,
is an everyday experience with him, as little noticeable as the passing
of wheeled vehicles to a townsman. He has to work hard to gain a scanty
living, but the fatness of the plains covered with waving cornfields
would seem to him suffocating. The roar of the landslide hurtling down
the mountain-side in the night and the crack of a falling tree are
sounds that cause him no fear; he has been accustomed to them from
childhood.
Transylvania is a very rich country, though the greater number of
its inhabitants are poor. The ores to be found in its mountains are
wonderful, quite the richest in Europe, and many people, especially the
gipsies, earn a livelihood by desultory washing for gold in the rivers.
There are plains bordering the rivers where flocks and herds may be
fed. Horses are bred and exported annually in thousands. Salt occurs
in large quantities both in solution and sometimes in complete hills.
Every one who gets the chance should visit one of the salt mines, some
of which have been worked over a thousand years. The salt is so pure
that it can be hewed out in great blocks and cubes, and the air is full
of the dust which settles down in a fine white powdered frost like the
artificial frosting of a Christmas card.
Maize, wheat, rye and other cereals are grown in the valleys of
Transylvania, also vines, while fruits are abundant. A most interesting
land it is, both as to its peoples, its scenery, and its products, and
a land that is not half so much known as it deserves. Any one with
hardihood enough to explore Transylvania, knapsack on back, in the
simplest manner, would be well rewarded for the risks he ran.
A Hungarian writer says:
Those who travel on Transylvanian soil look with bated breath
on the fabulous colouring of the bewitching picture which
water, rocks, forest, mountain and valley, Alps gleaming white
with snow, present at every step, every phase of beauty being
represented, from the idyllic to the awe-inspiring majestic,
and with wonder they gaze at the wealth of natural treasures
and natural phenomena, some of which are wonderful both as
sights and as marvels of the cunning of nature. It is in the
Transylvanian Alps that we find the sources of the two mighty
rivers of that country, the Maros and the Olt, as well as of
the Szamos, the Kukullo, and the Aranyos.
It was in Kolozsvar that King Matthias was born, and there is in
his native town a magnificent equestrian statue of this one of the
best-loved of Hungarian kings, executed by John Fadrusz. The birthplace
of the King is now the Museum of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society.
Among the attractions of Transylvania are the Torda Glen, composed of
split rocks forming gigantic precipices falling down to a narrow stream
scarce six yards wide; the Government salt mines, from which 50,000
tons of salt are excavated every year; the forest resort of Borszék,
hundreds of feet above sea-level, with its mineral spring, from which
three million bottles are annually exported, and its healing baths; the
Gyilkos-tó (Murderous Lake) not far distant:
A smooth sheet of water about 600 metres long, and nowhere
exceeding 200 metres in breadth. The water is crystal-clear and
in places thirty to forty metres deep. The surroundings of the
lake are enchanting. To the east the Gyilkos-havas with its
mantle of dark green pines, to the north the huge rocky pile of
the Nagy-Czohárd stretches gleaming in red; while to the south
the Nagy-Hagymás lifts heavenwards its rocky head. The Lake is
a favourite haunt of trout. On the banks there is a tourists’
shelter.
The salt hill of Parajd is another sight.
It is steep and precipitous, its sides as white as snow, bright
as the finest polished marble of Carrara.
There are many other watering-places with mineral springs; one of the
most curious is at Kovásna, which stands at the foot of the wooded
hills separating Hungary and Roumania.
In the square a fine towered building attracts our attention.
Even if not pointed out to us the front of the structure
would tell us that this is one of the great natural wonders
of Transylvania. It is the Pokolsár (hell-mud). Within the
building a strange murmur is heard, like that of boiling
water. On entering a peculiar pungent smell greets us. A basin
divided in half by a plank wall stands before us, it is the
Pokolsár with its spouting, whirling, wheeling, boiling water.
From the wall of the basin with terrific force and in huge
volume, carbon dioxide pours forth and not only keeps the water
in continual undulation, but softens and crushes the clayey
slate that constitutes the wall of the basin and turns its
colour to an ashen grey. The water of the Pokolsár, like some
heaving volcano, at times overflows its basin and threatens to
inundate the surrounding country. It tears up the wooden floor
of the basin, vomits forth heavy stones and discharges volumes
of vapour, the development of gas is so large and rapid that
the choking fumes render it impossible to enter the building,
while birds flying above the bath fall lifeless into the water.
The water has a wonderful effect, especially in the case of
rheumatic disorders. It is an alkaline mineral water. There are
many mineral springs of the kind in the neighbourhood.
Another beauty spot is the lake of St. Anne, in the crater of an
extinct volcano, which is in circumference 1800 metres.
It can be seen that Transylvania is a country for those to visit
who love natural beauty and the wonders of nature and want to get
off the ordinary tourist track. The Circular Railway, which now
traverses it under State direction, makes this comparatively easy,
and the civilisation of the towns will astonish those who think of
Transylvania as still primitive.
In the north-east corner of the Dual Monarchy, to the north of
Transylvania, lies the large and important country of Galicia, a slice
of the now vanished kingdom of Poland, wiped off the map by the three
great powers surrounding her. Galicia is larger than Bohemia but lacks
picturesqueness of scenery, and is the least known of all the provinces
of the Austrian Empire. It is nearly all mountainous, the land falling
down from the Carpathians, which form the southern boundary, toward
Russia. The highest peaks are the Woman’s Mountain, 5648 feet, and the
Waxmundska, 7189 feet. The Vistula and the Dniester both rise in this
country, which lies outside the system of the Danube, to which so great
a part of the dominions of Franz Joseph belongs. There is a good deal
of traffic in light boats down the Dniester to Odessa. The people are
divided between Ruthenians (Red Russians) and Poles, the latter being
in the western part.
By the end of the eighteenth century Poland was in a miserable state of
decay and helplessness, and the proposal for her partition came from
Prussia. Catherine II., ruling in Russia at the time, was quite ready
to agree, Maria Teresa of Austria was doubtful and had many scruples
but was at length over-persuaded, and the treaty was signed in 1772.
Frederick II. of Prussia is said to have remarked of Maria Teresa,
“She is always weeping, but she is always taking,” which was cynical.
But the real truth is that Maria Teresa was unable to help herself.
Unless she had been in a position to fight her two powerful neighbours
single-handed she could hardly have prevented the spoliation, and she
may have thought by taking her share in Galicia she ensured at least
good government and justice for some of the unhappy Poles. However,
of all three nations it is Russia in reality who has done most for
her acquired subjects, and she has treated the peasants fairly well.
Probably the strong kinship of race and tongue, stronger than in
the case of either of the other nations, has helped to cement this
fragment. In Germany the native tongue is strenuously suppressed, and
grinding poverty reigns in many districts.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century Poland was still a powerful
kingdom and had a long history of worthy exploits behind her. The name
is derived from _polé_, meaning plain or field, as the greater part
of the kingdom lay low and flat. There is no place here to go into
the history of that kingdom, of which only a small part belongs to
Austria. But it may be shortly said that her kings have ruled often
well and wisely, and made a name for themselves in other fields than
that of war or administration. Her literary men, in spite of the
peculiarly difficult language which had to be used as a medium, have
made themselves known beyond the borders of their own country. Of all
her sons, John Sobieski is the one who stands out most clearly in the
sight of other nations. He was one of the best generals Poland ever
had, and in 1674 was elected king under the title of John III. His most
famous successes were against the Turks, and when in 1683 the Turkish
armies advanced on Vienna and Leopold the Emperor fled ignominiously,
it was Sobieski who rallied his troops together and proceeded to the
rescue. The Turks were besieging the city and assaulted it no less
than eighteen times while it was held by Count Strahrenburg. Sobieski
co-operated with Charles Duke of Lorraine, brother-in-law of the
Emperor, and appeared on the heights of Kablenburg. The two armies
met in a terrific encounter, and the Turks were badly beaten, leaving
twenty thousand men behind them. When all was safe Leopold returned to
his capital, but was jealous of the success of Sobieski, and showed it.
In a letter to his wife Sobieski speaks of this treatment:
Our people have been much annoyed and have loudly complained
because the emperor never deigned to thank them not even by a
bow for all their troubles and privations. They give us neither
forage nor provisions; our sick are lying on dunghills and our
many wounded cannot obtain a single boat to carry them down to
Pressburg, where I could more easily provide for them at my
own cost.... Many of our men, finding that they were dying of
hunger in the country, hurried to the town to find food; but
the commandant of Vienna had given orders that they should not
be allowed to enter, and that they should be fired on. After
this great battle in which we have lost so many members of our
most illustrious families, we are treated like plague-stricken
men, whom everyone must avoid.
The downfall of the Turks was the more crushing because they had been
accustomed to consider themselves invincible and appeared rather as a
conquering cavalcade than as those who were fighting their way through
a hostile country. One of their leaders on this occasion, the Vizier
Kara Mustapha, had a tent made of green silk, worked with gold and
silver and set with precious stones. The holy standard was carried
inside it. After the battle Sobieski sent the golden stirrup of the
Grand Vizier to his Queen, and the standard to the Pope. It is one of
the minor ironies of history that Leopold, who after this marvellous
delivery was chiefly occupied with minute points of etiquette, such as
whether he ought to receive the elected King of Poland on the right or
left side, should have been surnamed the Great!
[Illustration: CRACOW: BARBARAKAPELLE]
The chief reasons given for the fall of Poland are that she had no
natural boundaries of mountain or river, and that the three powerful
nations around her all wanted something she had got. This was
particularly the case with Prussia, who greatly coveted the outlet to
the sea by way of Dantzig. Another reason is that there was in Poland
no middle class, only the nobility, and the serfs far below them,
and out of touch; and it has been rightly said that the middle class is
the backbone of a nation.
The town of Cracow was exempted from the 1772 arrangement when Poland
was partitioned, and made a free town, but it was found to be a focus
of disturbance for all the dispossessed Poles who retained ideals
of liberty, and it had to be firmly stamped upon more than once.
Russia at first undertook the stamping, but as the town was in the
Austrian dominions this duty eventually fell to Austria, and she did
it effectually by annexing the rebellious town in 1846. This was not,
however, until she had had some trouble, having sent troops to quell
disturbances there, and having had the humiliation of seeing them
beaten off by the nobles of the Polish aristocracy. So cordially did
the serfs hate their masters that they even sided with the Austrians
against their own high-born countrymen, and it was by their help that
Austria maintained her position. In consequence of this the Emperor
abolished compulsory cartage and forced labour during harvest to reward
the peasants. The Galician peasants have by no means an easy time. In
very many cases they are paid by a proportion of the harvests reaped
and not in money. The place occupied in most countries by a stable
middle class is here filled up by large numbers of Jews, who have
bought the estates as they came on the market, and now grind down the
remuneration of the workers to the lowest figure. Were it not that the
peasants very often migrate into Germany for the summer months and
there earn enough to keep body and soul together for the winter, their
position would be worse than it is. Horse-breeding is a large industry
here, as in many other parts of the composite kingdom; petroleum is
found in great quantities, and there are salt and coal mines which give
occupation to many.
By the settlement of 1867 Galicia was given Home Rule, though deputies
are still sent to the Austrian Parliament. Cracow and Lembert are the
two principal towns. Cracow is a seat of a famous university, and a
statue of its greatest pupil, Copernicus, stands in the courtyard.
Copernicus received his education here, though he was a native of
Prussia. Lemberg also has a university.
The Ruthenians, who form so large a proportion of the Galicians, are a
Slav race; they mostly belong to the Greek church and so suffer doubly
under the domination of the Jews.
INDEX
Adelsburg, grottoes of, 149
Aggstein, 90
Agram, 188
Alföld, the, 51, 52
Andrassy, Count, 117
Armenians, 200
Arpad, House of, 9, 62
Aspern, 19
Attersee, 149
Austerlitz, 19
Austria, Emperor of, 18, 22
Austrians, the, 93, 94
Avisio, River, 175
Baden, 101
Badgastein, 150
Balaton, Lake, 55
Balaton-Füred, 56
Ban of Croatia, 186
Barlangliget, 45
Beauharnais, Eugène, 164
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 108
Belgrade, 127
Bohemia, 131 _et seq._
Bora, the, 189
Borszék, 203
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 190
Bosnians, 192
Botzen, 167, 170
Brenner Pass, 159, 167, 168
Brixen, 170
Budapest, 115
Buonaparte, 17, 18, 161, 185
Campo-Formio, Treaty of, 193
Carinthia, 147
Carnic Alps, 61, 149
Carniola, 148
Carpathian Mountains, 40 _et seq._
Charles VI., 15
Charles, Archduke, 19, 20
Cisalpine Republic, 17
Copernicus, 210
Cortuna, 175, 183
Cracow, 209, 210
Croatia-Slavonia, 186
Csallókoz, 114
Csepel, Island of, 124
Cserna, River, 60
Csorba, 44
Czechs, 69, 137
Dalmatia, 18, 19, 192
Danube, the, 82, 124 _et seq._
Danube Steam Navigation Company, 83
Deak, 34
Debreczen, 55, 113
Dévény, 112
Dinaric Alps, 149
Diocletian, Emperor, 193
Dobsina, 43
Dolomitenstrasse, 183
Dolomites, the, 61, 175 _et seq._
Drave, River, 82, 126
Dress, 73
Dual Monarchy, 3
Dürrenstein, 90
Dvorak, Anton, 145
Eisach, River, 170
Elector Palatine, 143
Elizabeth, Empress, 32 _et seq._
Englehardzell, 85
Enns, River, 87
Esterhazy family, 95, 96, 107, 110, 113
Ferdinand IV., 21
Fiume, 188
Francis II., 17, 18, 21
Francis (Franz) Joseph, 21, 31 _et seq._
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 39
Frederick III., 12
Galicia, 205 _et seq._
German emperors, 12, 14
Gipsies, 71
Glurns, 167
Gmunden, 149
Gorz, 151
Gran, 114
Gratz, 152
Great Glockner, 170
Greifenstein, 91
Grein, 87
Gyilkos-tó, 203
Hanover, 29
Hapsburg, House of, 4, 12, 14, 144
Haydn, Joseph, 106
Hegyalia, 49
Herculesfürdo, 60
Herzegovina. _See_ Bosnia
High Tátra, 44
Hofer, Andreas, 160, 164
Hohenlinden, 18
Holy Roman Empire, 8
Hradcany Palace, 141
Hungarians, 5, 7, 53, 62 _et seq._
Hungary, 3, 8, 22
Hunyadi, Janos, 10, 59
Huss, John, 137
Illyria, 184
Inn, River, 84
Innsbruck, 156, 163, 167
“Iron Gates,” 129
Ischl, 149
Jerome of Prague, 138
Jews, the, 72, 209
Jochenstein, 84
Joseph II., 16, 17
Julian Alps, 61, 149
Kahlenburg, 207
Kalocsa, 126
Kamárom. _See_ Komorn
Karawanken Alps, 151, 152
Karlovicz, 127
Kazan Pass, 128
Kecskemét, 55, 58
Kinsky, 141
Kiskaros, 126
Klosterneuberg, 91
Kolozsvar, 200, 202
Kolumbacz, 128
Komorn, 114
Königgratz. _See_ Sadowa
Kossuth, 22
Kovásna, 203
Kovic, Bos, 197
Krems, 91
Kubelik, 145
Ladislas, King, 10
Lauenburg, Duchy of, 23
Lembert, 210
Libussa, 134
Linz, 86
Liszt, Franz, 118
Löcse, 55
Lombardy, 17
Louis II., 13, 140
Luxembourg, King John of, 137
Mack, General, 19
Magyars. _See_ Hungarians
Marengo, 18
Margaret (Maultasch) “Pocket Mouth,” 159
Maria Teresa, Queen, 15, 206
Marie Antoinette, 16
Marmolata, Mount, 175
Mátra Mountains, 46
Matthias, King, 10, 11
Maximilian I., 157
Maximilian, Archduke, 39
Meran, 170
Metternich, Count, 20
Millstättersee, 150
Mohács, 126
Mohács, battle of, 13
Mölk, monastery of, 89
Mondsee, 149
Moravia, 133, 145
Mozart, Wolfgang, 102
Napoleon. _See_ Buonaparte
Neuhaus, 86
Noric Alps, 61, 149
Observation cars, 155, 198
Orsova, 60, 129
Orteler Spitze, 61
Ostler Alp, 167
Ottakar II., 134
Otto the Bavarian, 9
Palatine, Elector, 143
Parajd, 203
Passau, 84
Persenbeug, 89
Peterwardein, 126
Petöfi, Alexander, 66, 120, 126
Podebrad, George of, 139
Poland, 205, 206, 208
Poprad, 43
Population (Austria-Hungary), 7
Population (Hungary), 72
Pöstyén, 45
Pozsony. _See_ Pressburg
Prague, 137, 141, 144
Premsyl dynasty, 133
Pressburg, 16, 19, 113
Pusterthal, 160, 170
Ragusa, 195
Railway travelling, 57
Rhaetian Alps, 61, 149
Richard I. (of England), 90
Rosengarten, 179
Roumanians, 70, 79
Rudolph, Prince, 35
Rudolph of Hapsburg, 135
Ruthenians, 205, 210
Sadowa, 25
St. Florian, 87
St. Stephen, 8
Salzburg, 19, 102, 149
Salzburg Alps, 149
Save River, 83, 127
Saxons, 200
Schleswig-Holstein, 23
Schneiderschlossel, 85
Schönbrunn Palace, 99
Schönbrunn, Peace of, 20
Schubert, Franz Peter, 110
Sevcik, 145
“Seven Weeks’ War, The,” 23
Slavonia. _See_ Croatia
Slavs, 7, 69, 146
Slovaks, 146
Sobieski, John, 207, 208
Spalato, 193
Stelvio Pass, 167
Sterzing, 169
Strauss, Johann, 100
Strudel, 88
Styria, 152
Széchenyi, Count Stephen, 118, 122, 123, 129
Szeged, 55, 58, 76
Szeklers, 200
Tátra Füred, 44
Temes, River, 127
Temesvar, 55, 59
Theiss, River, 82, 126, 127
Thurn, Count, 141
Tilly, Marechal, 87
Tillysberg, 87
Tisza. _See_ Theiss
Tokay, 49
Torda Glen, 203
Toroczko, 77
Transylvania, 14, 77, 199, 201
Trieste, 193, 197
Triple Alliance, 30
Turks, 9, 13, 14, 15, 207, 208
Tyrol, the, 19, 20, 61, 154 _et seq._, 166, 177
Tyrol, Counts of, 159
Tyrolese, the, 171
Tyrolese Alps, 61
Ulm, 19
Vág River, 42
Valerie, Archduchess, 35, 34
Vienna, 17, 19, 28, 92 _et seq._
Villach, 151
Vodnik, 185
Von Moltke, Count, 24
Wachau, the, 91
Wagram, 20
Wallach women, 79
Wallachs, 70, 200
Waterloo, 21
Waxmundska, 205
Weiteneck, 89
Wenceslaus, King, 136
Wends, 189
“Winter King, the,” 143
Wirbel, 88
Wocheiner See, 151
Woman’s Mountain, 205
Worth, Island of, 88
Ybbs, River, 89
Zsdjar, 77
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
[Illustration:
SKETCH MAP ACCOMPANYING “AUSTRIA-HUNGARY” BY G. E. MITTON.
PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, LONDON.
]
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
The illustration on page 38 is the musical score for the Austrian
National Anthem. An audible version of it is included with the Project
Gutenberg files for this ebook.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
Possible spelling/diacritical errors (none were changed):
Page 36: eightieth decade → eighth decade
Page 85: Englehardzell → Engelhartszell
Page 117: Andrassy → Andrássy
Page 118: Laszlo → László
Page 120: Petöfi → Petőfi
Page 122: Janos → János
Page 123: Wesselenyi → Wesselényi
Page 126: Zürr → Türr
Page 133: Premsyl → Přemysl
Page 145: Smetaud → Smetana
Page 150: udbahn → Südbahn
Page 115: O-Buda → Ó-Buda
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Austria-Hungary" ***
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